Trip Adler

Co-founder & CEO, Created by Humans; Partner, Rebel Fund at Rebel Fund

Reviewed Updated May 1, 2026

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Location San Francisco, California
Check Size Undisclosed (angel + Rebel Fund partner)
Last Verified Investment Tracer Bio (Series A ($10M) — listed on Tracxn; not confirmed in contemporaneous press) — ~2024
Social @tripadler LinkedIn
Stage Focus
seed
Sector Focus
ai publishing creator-economy media

Background

John R. “Trip” Adler III grew up in Palo Alto, California and attended Gunn High School before earning a biophysics degree from Harvard University 1. His interest in document publishing began with his father, a Stanford neurosurgeon whose academic paper publication process took roughly 18 months 1 7.

While at Harvard, Adler and classmate Jared Friedman were accepted into Y Combinator’s Summer 2006 batch — the program’s first year — and were later joined by Tikhon Bernstam as a co-founder 1 7 8. The team iterated through several startup ideas during YC before settling on Scribd, a web-based document publishing platform sometimes described as “the YouTube for documents” 7. Scribd launched from a San Francisco apartment in March 2007 1.

Adler served as Scribd’s CEO for roughly 17 years, building the company from a YC seed-stage document host into a paid subscription service for books, audiobooks, magazines, and documents 1 2. In October 2023, he stepped down as CEO; CFO Tony Grimminck was named interim CEO and later confirmed as permanent CEO in April 2024 2.

In June 2024, Adler announced Created by Humans, an AI rights licensing platform he co-founded with former Scribd executive Jen Singerman and engineer Edward Igushev 3 4. The company brokers licensing agreements between authors, publishers, and AI companies, with an initial focus on books 3 4. A June 2024 pre-seed round raised approximately $5 million from Craft Ventures (David Sacks), Floodgate, Slow Ventures, Launch, Garry Tan, and Walter Isaacson (who also joined as a creative adviser) 3 4. A second $5 million seed round in January 2025 was led by Giant Ventures with angel participation from Emmett Shear, Kyle Vogt, Drew Houston, and Cal Henderson 5.

Adler is also listed as a partner at Rebel Fund, a syndicate of Y Combinator alumni founders that invests in YC-stage companies 6. Other Rebel Partners include Steve Huffman (Reddit), Daniel Kan (Cruise), Max Mullen (Instacart), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi), and Dan Siroker (Optimizely) 6.

Stated Thesis

Adler has not published a personal angel investing thesis. His public statements concern his operating work at Created by Humans, primarily around AI training rights for creators.

On Created by Humans’ core proposition (Publishers Weekly, January 2025):

“Our goal is to make AI licensing simple and transparent so that authors of all sizes can contribute to and profit from AI’s use of their work while AI developers can properly reward the humans fueling their technology, without slowing down innovation.” 5

On author control:

“It’s very author-centric. We’ve got a few dozen authors already testing the product. Authors can license all their books, some of their books, or none of their books. We put authors in full control here.” 5

On the data quality proposition for AI companies:

“Part of our promise to AI companies is that all content was created by humans. We want to create a very clean database of human-generated works.” 5

These statements describe his operating thesis at Created by Humans rather than criteria for outside investments. Because Adler invests both directly and as a partner at Rebel Fund (whose stated focus is YC-batch companies), his external investment activity is best understood as YC-network-aligned rather than sector-specialized.

Inferred Thesis

Sample size caveat: only 2-3 angel investments are independently verifiable from contemporaneous press, plus partner participation at Rebel Fund. The sample is too small to support sector or stage percentages. The inferred thesis below is qualitative.

The verified pattern from publicly sourced deals:

  • YC alignment is the dominant signal. Adler’s most recent confirmed deal (Atla, December 2023) was a YC-backed seed round in which Adler participated via Rebel Fund 9 10. His earliest documented angel check, Swiftype (August 2013), was a YC W12 alumnus 11. Both Scribd’s founding and his subsequent investing activity sit inside the YC alumni network.
  • Operator-stage involvement, not full-time investing. Adler ran Scribd as CEO until October 2023 and is currently CEO of Created by Humans (2024-present) 1 2 3. Like other Rebel Partners, his investing is a side activity layered on top of an operating role, which constrains deal volume.
  • Recent deal cadence is sparse. Public records confirm angel activity in 2013 (Swiftype), occasional later checks summarized but not detailed on aggregator sites 12, and 2023 participation in Atla via Rebel Fund 9. Tracxn additionally lists a Tracer Bio Series A in December 2024 13; this is not corroborated by contemporaneous press and should be treated as unverified.
  • Sector pattern: AI, developer tools, and publishing/content-adjacent. Atla is an AI safety/evaluation company 9. Swiftype was a search infrastructure / developer tools company acquired by Elastic in 2017 11. Both sit close to Adler’s operator domains (content infrastructure, AI).

Active investor signal: weak-to-moderate. A founder evaluating Adler as an angel today should anticipate that direct personal checks are rare; the more reliable path is through Rebel Fund, which writes checks into YC-batch companies systematically 6. Adler is also building Created by Humans full-time, which further limits his personal angel bandwidth.

Portfolio

Company Year Stage Source
Swiftype 2013 Seed ($1.7M) — acquired by Elastic in 2017 11 12
Atla 2023-12-07 Seed ($5M, led by Creandum) — participated via Rebel Fund 9 10
Tracer Bio 2024-12-20 Series A ($10M) — listed on Tracxn; not confirmed in contemporaneous press 13

CB Insights lists Adler as having made 4 total investments, of which only the Atla 2023 entry is fully disclosed publicly; three older entries (2013, 2014, 2019) are paywalled and could not be independently confirmed 12. Tracxn lists 2 angel investments (Swiftype and Tracer Bio) 13. The table above lists every publicly traceable row; readers should assume the true portfolio is somewhat larger than what aggregators expose.

In Their Own Words

On Created by Humans’ design principle (Authors Guild press release, October 9, 2024):

“We’re thrilled to partner with the Authors Guild. This collaboration shows that it is possible to build ethical AI systems that respect creators’ rights while advancing technology. Authors maintain control of their work and gain a new revenue stream, while AI developers get access to authorized, accurate, high-quality content.” 14

On building an industry-wide framework (Axios, June 25, 2024):

“We’re trying to broker a three-way deal here — between the authors, publishers, and AI companies — by creating a whole new proprietary framework for AI rights.” 4

On how the legal scaffolding has historically excluded small creators (Publishers Weekly, January 2025):

“We’ve spent probably six to nine months working on the legal agreement. To date, AI licensing has mostly been happening between big companies with large legal teams. We want to make licensing accessible to anyone in the world.” 5

On industry sentiment toward AI (Publishers Weekly, January 2025):

“A lot of people in the publishing community are fearful of authors’ reactions to AI…there are also people who are really excited about innovation and want to lean into this.” 5

Adler has not given extensive on-the-record interviews about investing criteria, so these quotes reflect his operating thesis at Created by Humans rather than angel investment philosophy.

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials about working with Trip Adler as an angel investor were found after dedicated searching. Adler’s angel checks have typically been small components of larger institutional rounds (Creandum-led at Atla; Elastic-acquired Swiftype’s earlier seed round), and portfolio founders’ public statements at funding events have credited their lead investors rather than individual angels or Rebel Fund partners.

Connections

  • Scribd co-founders — Jared Friedman and Tikhon Bernstam. Adler co-founded Scribd with Friedman (Harvard classmate) in YC’s S06 batch, joined by Bernstam 1 7 8. Friedman later became a Y Combinator partner 8.
  • Rebel Fund partners. Adler is listed as a Rebel Partner alongside Steve Huffman (Reddit, YC S05), Daniel Kan (Cruise, YC W14), Max Mullen (Instacart, YC S12), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi, YC W16), Dan Siroker (Optimizely, YC W10), and biotech partner Jonathan Hirsch (Paradigm) 6.
  • Y Combinator — Garry Tan. Adler co-founded Scribd in YC’s first batch (S06); current YC president Garry Tan participated as an angel in Created by Humans’ 2024 pre-seed round 3 4 7.
  • Created by Humans co-founders — Jen Singerman and Edward Igushev. Singerman previously worked at Scribd as an executive; Igushev’s prior engineering work includes Google and Glean 3 4.
  • Walter Isaacson. Author and journalist; invested in and serves as creative adviser to Created by Humans (2024) 3 4.
  • Authors Guild — partnership (October 2024). Created by Humans signed a partnership agreement with the Authors Guild to license member works for AI use 14.

Sources

  1. Trip Adler — Wikipedia, accessed May 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Adler↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  2. Porter Anderson, “Scribd Names CFO Tony Grimmick to Succeed Trip Adler as CEO,” Publishing Perspectives, April 2024, accessed May 2026. https://publishingperspectives.com/2024/04/scribd-names-cfo-tony-grimmick-to-succeed-trip-adler-as-ceo/↩↩↩

  3. Sara Fischer, “Book authors get a startup to help them deal with AI companies,” Axios, June 25, 2024, accessed May 2026. https://www.axios.com/2024/06/25/created-by-humans-books-ai↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  4. Ed Nawotka, “Trip Adler Looks to Build a Bridge Between Creators, AI Companies,” Publishers Weekly, accessed May 2026. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/industry-deals/article/95359-trip-adler-looks-to-build-a-bridge-between-creators-ai-companies.html↩↩↩↩↩↩↩

  5. “Created by Humans Launches AI Rights Platform for Authors,” Publishers Weekly, January 14, 2025, accessed May 2026. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/96846-created-by-humans-launches-ai-rights-platform-for-authors.html↩↩↩↩↩↩

  6. Rebel Fund — Partners page, accessed May 2026. https://www.rebelfund.vc/↩↩↩↩

  7. “Asimov, Adler, and AI Rights: ‘Created by Humans’,” Publishing Perspectives, July 2024, accessed May 2026. https://publishingperspectives.com/2024/07/asimov-adler-and-created-by-humans-an-ai-rights-platform/↩↩↩↩↩

  8. Jared Friedman — Wikipedia, accessed May 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Friedman↩↩↩

  9. “Y Combinator-backed atla generates $5M in Creandum-led Seed round for AI safeguards,” tech.eu, December 7, 2023, accessed May 2026. https://tech.eu/2023/12/07/atla-generates-5m-in-seed-round/↩↩↩↩

  10. Atla Seed Round, Crunchbase, December 7, 2023, accessed May 2026. https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/atla-037f-seed–a00aef2a↩↩

  11. Tikhon Bernstam — Wikipedia (includes Swiftype context), accessed May 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikhon_Bernstam↩↩↩

  12. Trip Adler — Investor Profile, CB Insights, accessed May 2026. https://www.cbinsights.com/investor/trip-adler-investments↩↩↩

  13. Trip Adler — Portfolio & Founded Companies, Tracxn, accessed May 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/people/trip-adler/__sgTuPbS5jB4e0yQQAbCAaImO56AaVJ1JpRuRkxemUaw↩↩↩

  14. “Authors Guild Partners with Created by Humans to Empower Authors in the AI Era,” Authors Guild press release, October 9, 2024, accessed May 2026. https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-partners-with-created-by-humans-to-empower-authors-in-ai-era/↩↩