Initialized Capital is a venture capital fund founded in 2011 and headquartered in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. It was founded by
Alexis Ohanian
Alexis Kerry Ohanian ( hy, Ալեքսիս Քերի Օհանյան; born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Ste ...
, Harjeet Taggar, and
Garry Tan
Garry Tan (; born 1981) is the founder of Initialized Capital. He previously co-founded Posterous and Posthaven. He was also an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and a partner at Y Combinator.
Early life and education
Tan was born in 1 ...
.
As of 2021, it has raised more than $3.2 billion in assets.
Initialized Capital has 23 portfolio companies it invested in at
seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...
that have since become
unicorns
The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since Classical antiquity, antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn (anatomy), horn projecting from its forehead.
In European literature and art, the unicor ...
, including
Coinbase
Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work and the company lacks a physical headq ...
,
Ro,
Cruise Automation
Cruise LLC is an American self-driving car company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2013 by Kyle Vogt and Dan Kan, Cruise tests and develops autonomous car technology. The company is a largely-autonomous subsidiary of G ...
,
Instacart
Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service in the United States and Canada. The company offers its services via a website and mobile app. The service allows customers to order groceries from participatin ...
,
Flexport
Flexport Inc. is an American multinational corporation that focuses on supply chain management and logistics, including order management, trade financing, insurance, freight forwarding and customs brokerage. The company is headquartered in San ...
,
Opendoor
Opendoor Technologies Inc. is an online company that buys and sells residential real estate. Headquartered in San Francisco, it makes instant cash offers on homes through an online process, makes repairs on the properties it purchases and relists ...
,
Algolia
Algolia is a proprietary search engine offering, usable through the software as a service (SaaS) model.
Company
Algolia was founded in 2012 by Nicolas Dessaigne and Julien Lemoine, both originally from Paris, France. It was originally a comp ...
,
Goat Group, Rippling, Truepill, and CoinTracker.
History
Initialized raised $7 million in its first fund. In February 2012, it filed its Form D notice of exempt offering of securities. It raised $39 million in its second fund in August 2013.
In 2013, Initialized Capital became an early investor in Coinbase, wiring the cryptocurrency app's founder
Brian Armstrong $200,000.
Garry Tan left
Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, St ...
in 2015 to focus on Initialized full time.
On June 7, 2016, the firm announced a $100M target for its third fund and then closed $125 million.
In late 2018, it raised a $225 million fund, the company's fourth.
In June 2020,
Ohanian ended his role as Managing Partner at Initialized.
In August 2020, the firm raised $230 million, the company's fifth round.
In December 2021, Initialized Capital completed its sixth funding round, raising $700 million to invest in startups.
In August 2022, it was announced that Garry Tan would be leaving to re-join
Y Combinator
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 3,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, St ...
as CEO. Jen Wolf and Brett Gibson have taken over leadership of the firm in Tan's absence.
Recognition
Garry Tan has been listed on the ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
''
Midas List
The ''Forbes'' Midas list is the annual ranking by ''Forbes'' magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameters ...
from 2018-2022.
See also
*
Alexis Ohanian
Alexis Kerry Ohanian ( hy, Ալեքսիս Քերի Օհանյան; born April 24, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairman of the social media site Reddit along with Ste ...
*
Garry Tan
Garry Tan (; born 1981) is the founder of Initialized Capital. He previously co-founded Posterous and Posthaven. He was also an early employee at Palantir Technologies, and a partner at Y Combinator.
Early life and education
Tan was born in 1 ...
References
{{Reflist
Financial services companies established in 2011
Venture capital firms of the United States
2011 establishments in California