Dan Scheinman

Background

Dan Scheinman is a Silicon Valley angel investor and former technology executive ¹². He holds a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law (class of 1987) ¹³.

After graduating from Duke Law in 1988, Scheinman practiced as an associate at DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary for three years before transitioning to corporate leadership ¹³.

Scheinman spent 18 years at Cisco Systems (January 1997 to April 2011), contributing to the company’s growth from $100 million to over $40 billion in annual revenue ¹²³. He held multiple senior positions: as General Counsel, he pioneered using technology to reduce legal costs; as head of Corporate Development, he oversaw $20 billion or more in acquisitions with an emphasis on “emotional intelligence” (EQ) and team compatibility; and most recently served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Media Solutions Group ¹²³.

Since April 2011, Scheinman has been a full-time angel investor, operating through the Scheinman Angel Fund ²⁴. He departed Cisco on the same day as Eric Yuan, who had been Vice President of Engineering for Cisco’s videoconferencing division ¹³.

Scheinman wrote the first check into Zoom — a $250,000 investment made before even hearing Yuan’s pitch, based on his deep familiarity with Yuan from their Cisco days ¹³. That initial investment grew to approximately $700 million, a roughly 2,800x return ⁵. He has served on Zoom’s board of directors since January 2013 ⁶. He also connected Yuan to his cousin, Jim Scheinman, who helped name the company ⁷.

Scheinman has been named to the NYT/CB Insights Top 100 VCs multiple years and is a minority owner of the San Francisco Giants ⁵⁸.

Stated Thesis

Scheinman has publicly described his investment philosophy as finding “disruptive companies that the herd isn’t betting on,” stating: “If you really want to do well as an angel investor, you have to find disruptive companies that the herd isn’t betting on” ⁷.

He has articulated a “boring is beautiful” approach — investing in quietly essential enterprise infrastructure, security, and tooling rather than flashy consumer plays ⁵.

On what he looks for in founders: “The things that matter most for the early investor are the founder and the go-to-market strategy” ¹. He seeks founders with “unfair insight” — firsthand experience of pain at $1B+ scale ⁵.

His original niche strategy focused on experienced founders over 35, exploiting Silicon Valley’s bias against older founders ¹³. He has stated there are “good business reasons to like older founders — first, they understood their go-to-market strategy and had existing customer relationships” ³.

Scheinman has also said: “When I have that feeling of being surrounded by greatness, that’s the single biggest signal. Because great people will figure things out” ⁷.

On risk: “As an investor, my biggest risk is missing out on the next Zoom — there is no risk greater than missing a good company” ³.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 20 verified investments (Scheinman claims ~87 total, though only ~20 could be independently confirmed with sources), the following patterns emerge:

Sector breakdown: - Enterprise software/infrastructure: 7 of 20 (35%) — Zoom, Arista Networks, Think Big Analytics, Treasure Data, Spekit, Altostra, eshare.net - Cybersecurity: 5 of 20 (25%) — SentinelOne, CyCognito, Ariksa, IrisAgent, Cmd (if counted) - Data/analytics: 3 of 20 (15%) — Treasure Data, Imubit, Think Big Analytics - Consumer/social: 3 of 20 (15%) — Tango.me, Tomfoolery, Greenwave Systems - Other: 2 of 20 (10%) — Kodiak Data, Testim.io

Stage distribution: Almost exclusively pre-seed and seed. Check sizes range from $50K to $250K, with a sweet spot of $150K ⁴. Scheinman invests in one or two companies per year using personal capital ⁴.

Geographic focus: US and Israel (the US-Israel tech corridor is an explicit focus) ⁵.

Founder profile: Scheinman targets experienced founders over 35, technical founders with sales capability, and those who can articulate a clear 12-month path to paying pilot customers ¹³⁵. He later expanded to also target female founders as the experienced-founder niche became crowded ¹.

Co-investor patterns: His investment in Zoom connected him to Qualcomm Ventures and Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud Ventures ⁷. He is affiliated with Pear VC’s network for deal flow ⁵.

Post-investment style: Scheinman functions as an operational co-pilot — providing GTM architecture, talent connections through his Cisco network, board-level accountability, and introductions to tier-one funds (Accel, Lightspeed, Sequoia) ⁵.

Performance: Seven IPO unicorns from ~87 investments, including Zoom, SentinelOne, Arista Networks, and Rubrik ⁵. He has been involved in over $50 billion of value creation ³.

Note: Only 20 of ~87 claimed investments could be independently verified. Percentages above may not represent the full portfolio.

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 23% of ~87 claimed investments.

In Their Own Words

On finding great companies: “If you really want to do well as an angel investor, you have to find disruptive companies that the herd isn’t betting on” ⁷.

On recognizing greatness: “When I have that feeling of being surrounded by greatness, that’s the single biggest signal. Because great people will figure things out” ⁷.

On investing in Zoom: Scheinman wrote the first check to Eric Yuan before even hearing his pitch, based on their years working together at Cisco. He later said he regretted not investing double the amount, recognizing Yuan as a rare technical founder with sales capability ¹³.

On risk management: “As an investor, my biggest risk is missing out on the next Zoom — there is no risk greater than missing a good company” ³.

On enterprise transformation: “We’re in one of those periods where we’re about to see massive change in how things get done” ⁷.

On what makes great founders: “The things that matter most for the early investor are the founder and the go-to-market strategy” ¹.

What Founders Say

Spekit CEO Melanie Fellay stated upon Scheinman joining Spekit’s board: “We’re thrilled to welcome Dan Scheinman to the Spekit board. He’s had a front row seat and played an integral role in the development of transformational technologies” ⁷.

During Scheinman’s reference checks before investing in Zoom, colleagues described Eric Yuan with statements like “He’s the greatest person I’ve ever worked for, the greatest technical business mind ever” — which Scheinman has cited as a key signal in his decision to invest ⁷.

Note: No additional independently sourced founder testimonials from other portfolio companies were found.

Sources