Jared Heyman

Founder & Managing Partner, Rebel Fund at Rebel Fund

Reviewed Updated May 1, 2026

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Location San Francisco, California
Check Size Undisclosed (seed-stage YC checks via Rebel Fund)
Last Verified Investment Rebel Fund portfolio (YC S25 batch) (Seed — Rebel Fund has invested in 16 new companies in the trailing 12 months as of Feb 2026) — Jun 2025
Social @jaredheyman LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed
Sector Focus
yc-ecosystem ai fintech enterprise devtools healthtech

Background

Jared Heyman is an American entrepreneur and venture investor, currently Founder and Managing Partner of Rebel Fund, a San Francisco–based seed-stage venture capital firm that invests exclusively in Y Combinator alumni startups 1 2. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with majors in Business Honors and Marketing, and was formerly a consultant at Bain & Company 2 3.

Heyman founded Infosurv, an online market research firm, in Atlanta in 1998 3. He stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2010 but remained involved through ongoing calls with CEO Kyle Burnam 4. Infosurv was acquired by Savanta (part of Next 15 Communications Group) on January 25, 2023; financial terms were not disclosed 4 5. Infosurv’s spinoff Intengo, a crowdsourcing-based idea-development platform, launched out of Infosurv in 2013 3.

In April 2013, Heyman founded CrowdMed, a Y Combinator W13 startup that used crowdsourcing to help patients get suggested diagnoses for difficult cases — inspired by his sister’s prolonged ordeal with an undiagnosed rare genetic disease 3 6. CrowdMed raised approximately $4.2M in venture funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Khosla Ventures, Greylock Partners, actor Patrick Dempsey, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, and former YC president Sam Altman 2 3.

Heyman began investing in YC batches professionally in 2018 1. He founded Rebel Fund in 2019 7, building it into a YC-aligned syndicate that as of February 2026 had invested in 128 companies — including unicorns Jeeves and Airbyte 7. Rebel’s partner roster includes Steve Huffman (Reddit, YC S05), Daniel Kan (Cruise, YC W14), Max Mullen (Instacart, YC S12), Trip Adler (Scribd, YC S06), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi, YC W16), and Dan Siroker (Optimizely, YC W10) 1.

Stated Thesis

Heyman’s public investing thesis is built around one structural bet: that Y Combinator’s batches contain a disproportionate share of future seed-stage winners, and that data-driven selection within those batches can outperform manual stock-picking 1 8.

In his own words (rebelfund.vc):

“Since Rebel Fund invests exclusively in seed-stage Y Combinator startups, the dozens of blog posts I’ve published over the years are largely focused on what separates the future YC unicorns from the rest of the pack.” 1

He has stated that founder quality is the dominant underwriting criterion (Medium):

“since founder quality is the #1 factor we underwrite at Rebel” 9

And he has framed Rebel’s algorithm as a founder-evaluation tool rather than a market-evaluation tool (Medium, June 19, 2025):

“I often say that technically our algorithm is scoring companies, but really it’s scoring founders.” 10

Inferred Thesis

Sample frame: Rebel Fund’s 128 investments since 2019 7. Heyman’s personal angel checks pre-2019 are not separately disclosed, so this analysis treats Rebel’s portfolio as the operative dataset.

  • YC alignment is absolute. 100% of Rebel Fund’s investments go into Y Combinator alumni startups. This is the most extreme YC-specific thesis among any fund covered in the directory; there is no off-batch deal flow 1 7.
  • High-velocity, small-check seed. Tracxn reports 128 investments over ~6 active years and 16 new investments in the trailing 12 months, implying ~18–25 deals per year 7. The seed-stage average round size in Rebel’s portfolio is $4.44M, and Rebel typically participates as a syndicate member rather than as lead 7. This is a “diversified portfolio across the batch” strategy, not a concentrated picker strategy.
  • Stage mix: 52 seed (41%), 13 Series A follow-ons (10%), 1 Series B (<1%) 7. The fund is overwhelmingly a seed-entry vehicle with selective follow-on at A.
  • Sector mix follows YC, not Heyman. Tracxn classifies the portfolio as enterprise applications, fintech, and high-tech — which tracks the composition of recent YC batches rather than reflecting top-down sector selection 7. AI is a prominent and growing slice as YC has tilted toward AI companies post-2022 11.
  • Data-driven selection. Rebel uses a proprietary ML model (“Rebel Theorem,” now version 4.0) trained on a database of YC startups and founders 10 12. Heyman has claimed publicly that the model has surpassed the capabilities of “the very best VCs” — a marketing claim, but one consistent with the fund’s quantitative posture 10.
  • Notable unicorns: Jeeves (fintech, YC S20) and Airbyte (data infrastructure, YC W20) 7.

Active investor signal: strong. Rebel’s 16-deal trailing-12-month cadence is well above the bar for active seed investing, and Heyman personally attends every YC Demo Day 1.

Portfolio

The table below lists named Rebel Fund investments confirmed in public coverage. The full portfolio of 128 companies is not publicly enumerated by the firm.

Company Year Stage Source
Jeeves 2020 Seed (YC S20) — later unicorn 7
Airbyte 2020 Seed (YC W20) — later unicorn 7
Payflow ~2020 Seed — acquired 7
Starling Medical ~2022 Seed 11
Serif Health ~2022 Seed 11
Writesonic ~2021 Seed 11
EARTH AI ~2022 Seed 11

Rebel does not publish a full portfolio list; Tracxn’s count of 128 companies as of February 2026 is the canonical denominator 7.

In Their Own Words

On founder evaluation as the central problem (Medium, June 19, 2025):

“I often say that technically our algorithm is scoring companies, but really it’s scoring founders.” 10

On founder quality (Medium, “On the last decade of Y Combinator”):

“since founder quality is the #1 factor we underwrite at Rebel” 9

On chasing hot deals (Medium, “On investing in ‘hot’ Y Combinator startups”):

“don’t be afraid to invest in hot companies when you like them, since they do perform slightly better than their peers, but don’t assume they’ll do well just because they’re hot” 13

“we mostly ignore deal heat and instead focus on the fundamentals of each company, like its team, product, market, defensibility, etc” 13

On AI’s significance for the YC portfolio (Medium, “On Y Combinator startups and the AI revolution”):

“I think it will be closer to ‘electricity’ and ‘industrialization’ than ‘mobile’ or ‘blockchain’” 14

“the most important things for investors to look at with AI startups are team, product, market, traction, timing, and defensibility” 14

On the algorithm’s claimed performance (Medium, June 19, 2025):

“I’m convinced that our latest ML/AI models have already surpassed the capabilities of not only the average Silicon Valley VC, but the very best VCs.” 10

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials about working with Jared Heyman as an angel or Rebel Fund as a syndicate investor were found after dedicated searching. Rebel typically participates as a syndicate check inside larger institutional rounds at YC Demo Day, and portfolio founders’ public funding-event statements have generally credited their lead investors rather than batch-aligned syndicates.

Connections

  • Rebel Fund partners. Heyman founded Rebel Fund and leads a partner team of YC alumni: Steve Huffman (Reddit, YC S05), Daniel Kan (Cruise, YC W14), Max Mullen (Instacart, YC S12), Trip Adler (Scribd, YC S06), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi, YC W16), Dan Siroker (Optimizely, YC W10), and biotech partner Jonathan Hirsch (Paradigm) 1.
  • Rebel Fund operating team. Justin Hilliard (Principal), Luis Fortuño (Managing Director), and Alexandra Espinal (Portfolio Development) 1.
  • CrowdMed cap table. Heyman raised CrowdMed’s seed/early rounds from Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Khosla Ventures, Greylock Partners, Sam Altman (then YC president), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), and Patrick Dempsey 2 3.
  • Pioneer Fund — General Partner (prior). Wikipedia and Heyman’s Signal NFX profile note he previously served as General Partner at Pioneer Fund, an earlier YC-focused vehicle, before launching Rebel 3 15.
  • Bain & Company alumnus — prior career before founding Infosurv 2 3.
  • Y Combinator (W13) — CrowdMed alumnus; reports attending every YC Demo Day since 2013 1.

Sources

  1. Rebel Fund — partner roster and Jared Heyman bio, accessed May 2026. https://www.rebelfund.vc/↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. “Jared Heyman — Managing Partner at Rebel Fund,” LinkedIn profile (search result preview), accessed May 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredheyman/↩↩↩↩↩

  3. “Jared Heyman,” Wikipedia, accessed May 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Heyman↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. “Savanta Acquires Infosurv,” Next 15 Group, January 25, 2023, accessed May 2026. https://www.next15.com/media/news/savanta-acquires-infosurv/↩↩

  5. “Savanta acquires Infosurv,” Savanta news, accessed May 2026. https://savanta.com/knowledge-centre/news/savanta-acquires-infosurv/↩

  6. “CrowdMed: CrowdMed harnesses the wisdom of crowds to solve difficult medical cases,” Y Combinator companies directory, accessed May 2026. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/crowdmed↩

  7. Rebel Fund — Investor Profile, Tracxn, accessed May 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/venture-capital/rebelfund/__9LKEvRR6aOKp7LrB9ffURxW7s_q4DUE1AX4zKxZnBMY↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  8. Jared Heyman — Medium author page, accessed May 2026. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/↩

  9. Jared Heyman, “On the last decade of Y Combinator,” Medium, accessed May 2026. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-the-last-decade-of-y-combinator-fa19b387846a↩↩

  10. Jared Heyman, “On Rebel Theorem 4.0,” Medium, June 19, 2025, accessed May 2026. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-rebel-theorem-4-0-55d04b0732e3↩↩↩↩↩

  11. Rebel Fund Portfolio Companies, Crunchbase Hub, accessed May 2026. https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/rebel-fund-portfolio-companies↩↩↩↩↩

  12. “Designing a Diversified Seed Portfolio of YC Startups,” Rebel Fund blog, accessed May 2026. https://www.rebelfund.vc/blog-posts/designing-diversified-seed-portfolio-yc-startups-monte-carlo-irr-benchmarks↩

  13. Jared Heyman, “On investing in ‘hot’ Y Combinator startups,” Medium, accessed May 2026. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-investing-in-hot-y-combinator-startups-aed26869f77c↩↩

  14. Jared Heyman, “On Y Combinator startups and the AI revolution,” Medium, accessed May 2026. https://jaredheyman.medium.com/on-y-combinator-startups-and-the-ai-revolution-fe8ee2269abe↩↩

  15. Jared Heyman — Signal NFX investor profile, accessed May 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/jared-heyman↩