Yasmin Razavi

Background

Yasmin Razavi is a General Partner at Spark Capital, a venture firm managing approximately $4.2 billion in assets ¹. She joined Spark in 2017 on the growth team ²³.

Razavi grew up in Tehran, Iran ⁴. She studied engineering at the University of Toronto and later received an MBA from Harvard Business School ⁴. Before joining Spark, she worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, then as an investor at Index Ventures in London ⁴. She subsequently joined Snap Inc. as a product manager, where she built the technology behind the app’s monetization stack ⁴.

At Spark, Razavi focuses on growth-stage investments in enterprise software, fintech, and developer tools ⁴. She serves on the board of directors of Anthropic ⁵, Deel ⁶, Ada Support ⁷, and Capitolis ³. She was a judge at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021’s Startup Battlefield ⁸. She also hosts “Witty,” a monthly podcast where women in technology share their stories ⁹.

Stated Thesis

Razavi publicly describes her focus as growth-stage enterprise, fintech, and developer companies, typically investing at Series B and beyond ⁴. She partners with founders after they have achieved product-market fit and are scaling ⁴.

She has stated: “I help the founders I work with out-execute their competitors in their act one, and think through and capitalize on their act two and three” ⁴.

Razavi has described herself as “a student of go-to-market” and believes go-to-market execution “separates good companies from great companies” ⁴. Her areas of operational expertise include hiring sales teams, pricing strategies, partnerships, and compensation structures across company growth stages ¹.

On fintech specifically, she has stated: “Spark is probably one of the most active fintech investors in Silicon Valley” ¹. She views payments as “an incredibly lucrative and attractive space” with enough complexity “from a regulatory perspective or from a localization perspective or from a cross-border perspective” that “each of these creates a wedge for a new player to come in and play” ¹.

Razavi has explicitly rejected gut-driven investing: “I believe gut driven investing often favors a certain type of entrepreneur and disadvantages founders that are not performers, but who are nonetheless building solid businesses. This is something I’m very conscious of and want to avoid” ⁴.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 10 verified investments where Razavi’s individual involvement is documented; sample is small but sufficient for qualitative patterns.

Sector distribution across the 10 verified investments: fintech/payments (Deel, Marqeta, Rapyd, Capitolis, Earnin — 5 of 10, 50%), AI/ML (Anthropic, Adept — 2 of 10, 20%), developer tools/enterprise (Ada Support, Superblocks — 2 of 10, 20%), gaming/AR (Niantic — 1 of 10, 10%). Fintech dominance is consistent with her stated thesis. The AI investments (Anthropic, Adept) represent a growing area not prominently featured in her early stated thesis.

Stage distribution is overwhelmingly growth-stage: Series B (Deel, Niantic), Series C (Ada Support, Earnin, Anthropic), Series D (Rapyd), and Series E (Marqeta). This is consistent with her stated focus on post-product-market-fit companies. The Superblocks and Adept investments appear to be earlier-stage exceptions.

Check size range is $5M to $15M with a sweet spot of $10M per Signal NFX data ¹⁰. As part of Spark’s growth practice, she writes larger checks than typical seed or early-stage investors.

Geographic patterns: Portfolio companies span the U.S. (Deel — San Francisco, Anthropic — San Francisco, Marqeta — Oakland, Niantic — San Francisco, Earnin — Palo Alto), Israel (Rapyd, Capitolis), and Canada (Ada Support — Toronto). The Israel exposure through Capitolis and Rapyd is notable and aligns with her payments/capital markets interest.

Co-investor patterns in documented deals: Coatue Management (Marqeta Series E, Rapyd Series D), Andreessen Horowitz (Earnin Series C), Tiger Global (Ada Support Series C), DST Global (Earnin Series C). This suggests Razavi invests alongside large growth-stage crossover funds.

Founder profile patterns: Razavi invests in highly technical founders building infrastructure companies. Anthropic’s founders came from OpenAI with deep AI safety research backgrounds; Deel’s co-founders built global payroll infrastructure; Marqeta’s team built modern card issuing technology. She has explicitly stated a preference for founders building “highly technical” companies ⁴.

Notable gap: Despite her stated thesis emphasizing developer tools, the verified portfolio skews heavily toward fintech and AI. Developer tools (Superblocks) represents only 1 of 10 verified investments. Her actual investment behavior is more concentrated in financial infrastructure and AI than her public positioning suggests.

Portfolio

The following investments represent cases where Yasmin Razavi’s individual involvement has been documented. Since joining Spark in 2017, she has led or participated in investments on behalf of the firm ⁴. This table represents publicly confirmed deals.

Notes: - Niantic year based on Spark Capital’s first investment in Niantic’s $200M Series B in November 2017 ¹¹. - Earnin: Spark Capital participated in $125M Series C announced December 2018 ¹². - Marqeta: Spark participated in $260M Series E in March 2019 ¹³. - Capitolis: Spark co-led $40M Series B announced November 2019 ¹⁴. - Deel: Spark led $30M Series B announced September 2020; Razavi joined Deel’s board ⁶. - Rapyd: Spark participated in $300M Series D in January 2021 ¹⁵. - Ada Support: Spark led $130M Series C in May 2021 at $1.2B valuation; Razavi joined Ada board ⁷. - Superblocks: Spark invested in Series A; Razavi announced investment August 2022 ¹⁶. - Adept: Listed on Spark website as Razavi portfolio company ⁴; exact round and year not independently confirmed. - Anthropic: Spark led $450M Series C in May 2023; Razavi joined Anthropic board ⁵.

Additional investments where Razavi is mentioned but her specific role is less documented include Discord and Postmates, both Spark Capital portfolio companies listed on her profile page ⁴.

In Their Own Words

On investing approach:

“I believe gut driven investing often favors a certain type of entrepreneur and disadvantages founders that are not performers, but who are nonetheless building solid businesses. This is something I’m very conscious of and want to avoid.” — Spark Capital website ⁴

On fintech and payments:

“I think it’s been as exciting as ever to be a fintech investor. I’m personally pretty interested in payments as a sector. This is obviously not a new sector, but there are a bunch of trends that have accelerated the adoption of online payments and the movement from cash to electronic payments.” — FinLedger interview ¹

“Fast forward to today, where we are is that payments is an incredibly lucrative and attractive space. There’s enough complexity from a regulatory perspective or from a localization perspective or from a cross-border perspective from the different payment methods that exist around the world. Each of these creates a wedge for a new player to come in and play. That makes this a massive market. I think there’s going to be room for many players to build multibillion-dollar entities here.” — FinLedger interview ¹

On Deel:

“I was interested in Deel from the get-go as the best-suited to be the winner in a category on the cusp of huge growth. The hurdles employers face when hiring employees internationally can be so Herculean, they ultimately give up on hiring their ideal candidate and settle for the most hirable. Deel eliminates those hurdles and enables employers to hire and onboard efficiently, allowing them to get to work faster.” — Yasmin Razavi Medium blog ¹⁷

On Ada Support:

“Companies across all industries and stages increasingly see the quality of their customer experience and communication as a competitive advantage, and yet they are not able to efficiently scale their efforts to meet their customers’ needs.” — BetaKit, May 2021 ⁷

She described Ada’s software as “game-changing” and noted the company “has carved out an entirely new category in automated customer experience” ⁷.

On Anthropic:

“All of us at Spark are excited to partner with Dario, Daniela, and the entire Anthropic team on their mission to build reliable and honest AI systems.” — Anthropic Series C announcement, May 2023 ⁵

On female founders in fintech:

“There’s an increasing number of mature fintechs creating exceptional talent” who will found next-generation startups, with many female operators pursuing this path. — FinLedger interview ¹

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. The Deel Series B announcement noted that the partnership began when Razavi reached out to Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz via Twitter DM, which led to a 6-week series of Zoom meetings and calls resulting in the investment ⁶. However, no direct quote from Bouaziz evaluating Razavi as an investor was found.

Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz stated about the company’s mission at the time of the Spark-led Series B: “We’re challenging the notion that companies need to hire within their vicinity. Our goal is to enable companies to hire the best talent wherever they are, without having to worry about legal and financial complexities, creating a truly global workforce” ⁶. This was a company statement, not a testimonial about the investor.

No other portfolio founder quotes about working with Razavi were found after dedicated search across Twitter, podcast transcripts, and press coverage.

Sources