Elias Torres

Background

Elias Torres immigrated to the United States from Nicaragua at age 17, arriving without English language skills ¹². He attended Leto High School in Tampa, Florida, and through the USF Latino Scholarship Program earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Florida in 1998 ¹². He later earned a master’s degree in computer science from Harvard University ¹².

Torres began his career at IBM, where he spent approximately 10 years as a software engineer working on open-source collaboration tools, including internal chatbots, blog systems, and wikis ¹². He left IBM after watching colleagues depart for startups like Google and Facebook ¹.

In 2007, Torres joined Lookery, a startup that collected demographic data about web users and sold it to ad networks ¹. He then co-founded Performable, a marketing software platform, where he served as CTO ². Performable was acquired by HubSpot in 2011, and Torres became VP of Engineering at HubSpot, where he led the effort to reinvigorate the company’s marketing products ¹³.

In 2014, Torres left HubSpot to co-found Drift with David Cancel ³. Drift pioneered the “conversational marketing” category and grew to over 600 employees and 50,000+ customers globally ²⁴. In September 2021, Vista Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Drift at a valuation exceeding $1 billion, making it one of the only Latino-founded companies to achieve unicorn status ⁴⁷.

Although Vista acquired Drift in 2021, Torres remained as CTO through at least 2022 ⁷ before departing in approximately 2023 ³. He then founded Novy, an AI consulting firm that partnered with OpenAI, generating several million dollars in revenue with just 10 employees ³. In 2024, he co-founded Agency (with former Drift colleague Luke Van Seters), an AI agent platform for customer success teams, which raised a $20 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Sequoia, Felicis, Snowflake Ventures, and Databricks Ventures ⁵⁶.

Torres is a member of the 2022 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute ² and was named to the Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players list in both 2022 and 2024 ³⁷. He also serves as a Venture Partner at Array Ventures ⁸ and a Partner at The Community Fund, a $5 million early-stage fund ⁹.

Stated Thesis

Torres has described his angel investing strategy in direct terms: “Basically, if you’ve worked for me and you start a company and ask me, I invest” ³. This loyalty-based approach reflects a belief in backing known quantities — people he has personally managed and observed.

As a Venture Partner at Array Ventures, Torres is part of a firm that focuses on “founders building the future with AI” with first checks ranging from $250K to $3M at pre-seed through Series A stages ⁸. Array invests across enterprise software, AI/ML infrastructure, developer tools, data infrastructure, and B2B SaaS ⁸.

Through The Community Fund, Torres invests at smaller check sizes ($25K-$50K) focused on community-driven companies ⁹.

Torres has expressed a strong affinity for lean, AI-native companies. He has stated: “I don’t want my company to be more than 100 people, ever. I want to be generating $1 billion in revenue with 100 people” ⁵. He has also questioned publicly whether “you can be a billion-dollar company with 10 or 20 people in this age of AI” ³.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 6 verified angel investments in the portfolio table below, the following patterns emerge. Note: Torres has reportedly made up to 17 investments total (per PitchBook), so these 6 represent approximately 35% of his known portfolio. Given the small sample size, qualitative descriptions are used rather than precise percentages.

Sector Patterns

The portfolio is heavily concentrated in B2B SaaS, marketing technology, and data/analytics tools: - MarTech / E-commerce Marketing: 3 companies (Klaviyo, Postscript, Goldcast) — the largest cluster, reflecting Torres’s deep operator experience at HubSpot and Drift - Developer Tools / Data Infrastructure: 2 companies (Metaplane, Appcues) — tools for product and data teams - AI / Sales Automation: 1 company (Redcar) — reflecting his current focus on AI-native businesses

Stage Distribution

All 6 verified investments were at the seed stage. Torres appears to invest exclusively at the earliest stages.

Geographic Concentration

The portfolio is concentrated in the Boston/New England area, consistent with Torres’s base and his network from HubSpot, Drift, and Performable. Klaviyo, Appcues, Metaplane, and Postscript all have Boston-area roots.

Founder Profile Patterns

A defining pattern is Torres’s preference for backing former employees and close professional contacts. Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki worked for Torres at Performable ³. Several other portfolio founders have HubSpot/Drift ecosystem connections. Torres explicitly invests based on having personally observed a founder’s work ethic and capability.

Co-investor Patterns

Frequent co-investors include David Cancel (Drift co-founder), Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot CTO), Brian Halligan (HubSpot CEO), and institutional investors like Accomplice, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. The pattern suggests Torres invests alongside the broader Boston B2B SaaS network.

Notable Gaps

Despite his role at Array Ventures (which focuses on AI infrastructure and enterprise software), Torres’s personal angel portfolio skews more toward martech and sales tools — areas where he has the deepest operator expertise. There is no significant consumer, fintech, or healthcare representation in his known portfolio.

Portfolio

Note: Torres has reportedly made up to 17 investments total (per PitchBook). This table represents approximately 35% of that claimed total. Only independently verified investments with source citations are included. Dates marked “~YYYY” use best available estimates.

In Their Own Words

On his investing strategy:

“Basically, if you’ve worked for me and you start a company and ask me, I invest.” ³

On assessing Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki:

“The guy is a grinder. He was so gung-ho. There’s nothing he might think of as impossible; everything is a matter of perseverance.” ³

On Klaviyo’s product:

“He made the ROI story so simple. So the product just sells itself.” ³

On his immigration journey:

“I came in 1993 to the United States as an immigrant Latino. And it started truly from the bottom — my first job to support and help my mother was cleaning offices, taking the garbage out, while I was going to high school.” ¹

On AI and company building:

“I don’t want my company to be more than 100 people, ever. I want to be generating $1 billion in revenue with 100 people.” ⁵

On hiring:

“I don’t hire for credentials. I don’t hire for where you came from, what you said you did. Actually, like, if you have all that stuff, I kind of like, rule you out immediately.” ¹⁵

On giving people a chance:

“I give people a shot… test their intelligence from the conversation, see if they have hunger, they have grit.” ¹⁵

On failure and risk:

“I’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the decisions I’ve made. I sold things I shouldn’t have sold; I didn’t invest in things I should have invested in. Those are failures, but it doesn’t mean I’m a failure.” ¹

On selling Drift:

Torres has described selling Drift for $1.2 billion as “the biggest failure,” reflecting on what the company could have become had they continued building independently ¹⁶.

On AI’s current state:

“If it’s doing 10 percent more than I wasn’t doing before, if it’s doing 20 percent, 30 percent, I’m extremely happy.” ¹⁵

On Latino entrepreneurship:

Torres expressed pride in Drift being “one of the only Latinx-founded companies to ever achieve over $1 billion valuation” ⁷.

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. While Torres has invested in multiple Boston-area startups and is closely connected to founders like Andrew Bialecki (Klaviyo) through his Performable/HubSpot network, no public quotes from portfolio founders specifically about Torres’s role as an investor or advisor could be independently verified. The Boston Globe has reported on Bialecki’s connection to Torres through Performable, but the available quotes about Bialecki are from Torres, not the reverse ³.

Sources