Immad Akhund
Co-Founder & CEO, Mercury; Solo GP, Immad Akhund Fund
Reviewed Updated Jun 5, 2026This profile is AI-generated. If you spot an error, please help us fix it by sharing a URL to the correct information.
Background
Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a banking platform for startups 1. He was born in Pakistan and moved with his family to London at age nine; his mother was a teacher and his father owned a mechanic shop 2. He studied at the University of Cambridge from 2002 to 2006, earning a Master of Arts in Computer Science 3.
Before Mercury, Akhund worked as a software developer at Aquila (2004–2005) and as a financial software developer at Bloomberg 2. He co-founded and served as CTO of Clickpass, an OpenID identity company, in 2007 2. In 2008 he co-founded Heyzap as a social network for gamers, which pivoted to become an ad monetization platform for mobile game developers. Heyzap was acquired by Fyber for $45 million in 2016 12.
Akhund founded Mercury in 2017 after years of frustration banking his prior startups 2. Mercury combines accounts, cards, bill pay, invoicing, spend management, and financial intelligence on a single platform built for startups 2. Mercury closed a $300M Series C in 2025 and subsequently raised a $200M Series D at a $5.2B valuation led by Technology Crossover Ventures 314. Mercury also received conditional OCC approval to establish Mercury Bank, N.A. 3.
Akhund was a part-time partner at Y Combinator and is one of the most prolific operator-angels in Silicon Valley, with 350+ angel investments since 2016 45. In May 2025 he formalized his angel activity by launching the Immad Akhund Fund, a $26 million solo-GP vehicle, with Yash Doshi as partner 47.
Stated Thesis
Akhund’s stated investing thesis emphasizes founder quality over sector. His Mercury investor-database self-description focuses on most industries “outside of biotech and hard tech,” with a $50K–$100K check at pre-seed and seed, globally, and a stated policy of not leading rounds 1.
For the $26M fund, he says he is looking for founders “with a strong track record of building” who are pursuing ideas that “need to exist for humanity” in markets valued at $10 billion or more 74.
In a Foundr interview, Akhund described his four-element framework for evaluating founders: deep knowledge of vertical and product, chemistry with the founder, perseverance, and a willingness to engage with him as an advisor 5.
On his motivation, Akhund has stated: “I love supporting entrepreneurs – whether it’s through building Mercury or investing. It gives me energy, perspective, and deep satisfaction to help ambitious founders build the future. A dedicated fund allows me to go deeper and back founders more meaningfully” 4.
Inferred Thesis
This analysis is based on a sample of ~17 publicly identified portfolio companies plus aggregator-level data. Akhund’s portfolio is reported at 300–350+ total investments 1456, so this sample represents roughly 5% of his total — too small to compute reliable sector percentages. Qualitative patterns from named portfolio companies plus NFX Signal and VCSheet data are reported below.
Stage: Pre-seed and seed only. Sweet-spot check is $50K with a $50K–$100K range 16. He explicitly does not lead rounds 16.
Sector orientation (qualitative, from named investments): Heavily weighted toward SaaS / productivity / developer infrastructure (Airtable, Linear, Substack, Rippling), fintech (Jeeves, AtoB, Rappi), and healthcare (Nurx, Vitable Health, Pair Team, Thirty Madison, Clara) 1812. He explicitly excludes biotech and hard tech as categories 1 — though Gecko Robotics (industrial robotics) and Applied Intuition (autonomous-vehicle simulation) sit on the harder-tech edge of his book 47.
Geographic concentration: Predominantly San Francisco / Bay Area, with significant non-Bay outliers (Rappi in Bogotá, Jeeves in Miami, Thirty Madison in NYC, Vitable Health in Philadelphia) 8. Stated geography is global 1.
AI exposure: Recent 2025–2026 deals are AI-dominant — Town (AI tax), Decagon (AI customer support), Eloquent AI, ego AI, Natural — suggesting AI applications are now his core deal flow even though he frames himself as sector-agnostic 64.
Co-investor patterns: NFX Signal reports frequent co-investment with Michael Seibel (Y Combinator), Justin Kan (Goat Capital), Foundation Capital, and True Ventures 6. As a Mercury customer-investor pipeline, his deals often cluster with other founder-angels and the YC network.
Operating-CEO model: The fund’s distinctive feature is that it sits on top of Mercury’s customer community of tens of thousands of startups, giving Akhund organic deal flow and the ability to help portfolio companies with distribution and hiring through Mercury’s network 9. This is unusual: a sitting CEO running an institutional fund.
Notable historical theme: Akhund has acknowledged a niche interest in space-related investing from approximately 2018–2022 11, though this is not represented in publicly named portfolio companies in this sample.
Portfolio
This table includes 17 publicly named investments. Akhund’s true portfolio is reported as 300–350+ companies; this represents roughly 5% of the stated total. Specific round details (stage, exact year) are largely undisclosed for individual angel checks; entries are tagged with founding-year proxies where exact investment dates are not public.
| Company | Stage | Year | Sector | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Axiom Trust | Seed ($15M) | 2026-03 | Fintech | Active | 6 |
| Natural | Seed ($10M) | 2025-10 | AI | Active | 6 |
| Eloquent AI | Seed ($8M) | 2025-09 | AI | Active | 6 |
| ego AI | Seed ($7M) | 2025-10 | AI | Active | 6 |
| Town | Seed ($18M) | 2025-03 | AI/Tax | Active | 6 |
| Decagon | Angel | ~2023 (founding year) | AI/Customer Support | Active | 47 |
| Gecko Robotics | Angel | ~2018 (founding year) | Industrial Robotics | Active | 47 |
| Applied Intuition | Angel | ~2017 (founding year) | Autonomous Vehicles | Active | 47 |
| Linear | Seed/Series B | ~2019 (founding year) | Developer Tools | Active | 4810 |
| Substack | Angel | ~2017 (founding year) | Publishing/Consumer | Active | 148 |
| Airtable | Seed | ~2013 (founding year) | SaaS | Active | 145 |
| Rippling | Angel | ~2017 (founding year) | HR/SaaS | Active | 45 |
| Rappi | Angel | ~2015 (founding year) | Fintech/Delivery | Active | 145 |
| Jeeves | Angel | ~2020 (founding year) | Fintech | Active | 8 |
| AtoB | Angel | ~2020 (founding year) | Mobility/Fintech | Active | 8 |
| Nurx | Angel | ~2015 (founding year) | Healthcare | Active | 113 |
| Vitable Health | Angel | ~2020 (founding year) | Healthcare | Active | 8 |
| Pair Team | Angel | ~2019 (founding year) | Healthcare | Active | 8 |
| Thirty Madison | Angel | ~2017 (founding year) | Healthcare | Active | 8 |
| Honey Homes | Angel | ~2021 (founding year) | Home Services | Active | 8 |
| Golden | Angel | ~2019 (founding year) | Edtech/Crypto | Active | 8 |
| ~unknown | Clara | Angel | undisclosed | AI Healthcare | Active |
Notable miss: Akhund passed on Scale AI’s early round because he judged the founders, then 19 and 20, too young — a decision he has publicly cited as the angel investing mistake he most regrets 11.
In Their Own Words
On why he angel invests:
“I love supporting entrepreneurs – whether it’s through building Mercury or investing. It gives me energy, perspective, and deep satisfaction to help ambitious founders build the future. A dedicated fund allows me to go deeper and back founders more meaningfully.” 4
On evaluating founders:
“They should be able to answer any question you pose to them and have a really thoughtful, meaningful answer.” 5
On chemistry as an investment criterion:
“If I invest in someone and they send me an email at 6pm and they need some advice and can they have a call, I will say yes.” 5
On perseverance:
“Being an entrepreneur can be a real grind, and you can feel like the whole world is against you.” 5
On fundraising storytelling:
“It’s not about the facts. It’s like the story that you weave.” 13
“So much of the investment decision is about how well the investor feels they can get along with you.” 13
On growth versus runway:
“A startup is about growth…you really have to think about growth first and foremost.” 13
“Runway for the sake of runway is not useful. You should have runway to hit certain thresholds.” 13
On passing on Scale AI (his most-cited angel mistake):
“Good idea, but these people are so young.” 11
“I think I could run this company better if I was doing it and I didn’t see how they were going to figure it out.” 11
“I was just so wrong.” 11
“There’s some power to that youth that’s hard to judge. You kind of have to suspend belief and say, okay, this person’s going to figure out how to run a huge company.” 11
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials about working with Akhund as an angel investor were found during this research pass. Multiple Mercury customer testimonials exist but those describe Mercury’s banking product, not Akhund’s investor relationship.
Sources
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Mercury, “Immad Akhund | Investor Database,” accessed June 2026. https://mercury.com/investor-database/immad-akhund↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Hayat Life, “Mercury: Immad Akhund founds bank for tech startups,” September 18, 2021. https://hayatlife.com/2021/09/18/immad-akhund-mercury-bank/↩↩↩↩↩↩
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LinkedIn, “Immad Akhund,” accessed June 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/↩↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Mercury’s CEO formalizes bets on early-stage founders with a $26M fund,” May 12, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/12/mercurys-ceo-formalizes-bets-on-early-stage-founders-with-a-26m-fund/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Foundr, “How Mercury Co-founder Immad Akhund Finds Joy in Building Startups, Even If They’re Not His,” October 5, 2023. https://foundr.com/articles/building-a-business/immad-akhund↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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NFX Signal, “Immad Akhund’s Investing Profile - Angel,” accessed June 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/immad-akhund↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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VCSheet, “Immad Akhund Fund - VC Fund Breakdown,” accessed June 2026. https://www.vcsheet.com/fund/immad-akhund-fund↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Boring Business Nerd, “Immad Akhund,” accessed June 2026. https://www.boringbusinessnerd.com/investor/immad-akhund↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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VCSheet, “Investor, Immad Akhund Fund,” accessed June 2026. https://www.vcsheet.com/who/immad-akhund↩
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The SaaS News, “Linear Raises $35 Million in Series B,” accessed June 2026. https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/linear-raises-35-million-in-series-b↩
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Yahoo Finance / Business Insider, “A founder who bet on 350 startups says passing on a hot AI company taught him a hard lesson,” May 14, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/founder-bet-350-startups-says-072503058.html↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Mercury (X / Twitter), “@immad Immad Akhund is the CEO of Mercury and is a serial founder & investor… He’s also an investor in 200+ startups, incl. Nurx, AirTable, Rappi, & Substack,” March 28, 2022. https://x.com/mercury/status/1508508031763595265↩
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The Full Ratchet, “Episode 398: Behind the Scenes at Mercury During the SVB Crisis, Tactical Fundraising Advice for Founders, Lessons from 300+ Angel Investments (Immad Akhund),” August 28, 2023. https://fullratchet.net/398-behind-the-scenes-at-mercury-during-the-svb-crisis-tactical-fundraising-advice-for-founders-lessons-from-300-angel-investments-immad-akhund/↩↩↩↩↩
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Tech Funding News, “Cambridge-educated immigrant founder raises $200M at $5.2B to build the fintech Silicon Valley never had,” accessed June 2026. https://techfundingnews.com/cambridge-educated-immigrant-founder-raises-200m-at-5-2b-to-build-the-fintech-silicon-valley-never-had/↩