founder-friendly
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The House of Brands That Started With a Kilt
Society Brands buys founder-run e-commerce companies, keeps the founders on the payroll, and is betting that Canton, Ohio can out-scale the aggregators that flamed out.
The Firm That Bet Against the Buyout Playbook - and Ran It 40 Years
For four decades, a Beverly Hills firm has invested in middle-market companies by lending and owning at the same time. In July 2025 it closed its seventh flagship fund at over $3.6 billion - proof the contrarian model still sells.
The Firm That Bets on the Toolmakers, Not the Cure
For nearly four decades, Ampersand Capital Partners has skipped the lottery of drug discovery and quietly backed the companies that make the drug discovery possible. In May 2026 it closed a $1.5 billion fund in a single day.
Clearco
Clearco is a Toronto-based fintech that gives ecommerce and direct-to-consumer brands fast, non-dilutive growth capital - founders raise money without giving up equity or signing personal guarantees. Using AI to read revenue, marketing spend and sales data, Clearco offers cash advances, invoice funding and rolling capacity repaid as a share of revenue. Founded in 2015 as Clearbanc by Michele Romanow and Andrew D'Souza, the company has deployed more than $3 billion to over 10,000 brands and, after a 2023 recapitalization, relaunched a rebuilt funding platform under CEO Andrew Curtis.
Brendan Rogers
Brendan Rogers is the co-founder and general partner of 2am VC, an India-only early-stage venture fund betting on the country's Gen Z founders. Before turning investor, he co-founded Wag!, the on-demand dog-walking app that listed on NASDAQ after raising over $360M, and a social discovery service later acquired by IAC. From bases in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Los Angeles, he is one of the most visible American VCs operating inside India today.
Yukiko Jenkins
Yukiko Jenkins is a General Partner and CFO at Cox Exponential (CX2), the early-stage AI and robotics venture vehicle backed by Cox Enterprises. Born in England and raised between England and Japan, she is a Certified Public Accountant with over 20 years of finance and operations experience spanning Big Four auditing, startup consulting, and leadership at AI computer vision company Fyusion. At CX2 - a fund run by engineers for engineers - she bridges rigorous financial oversight with a deep insider knowledge of what it takes to build frontier AI companies from zero to product.
Shreya Shekhar
Shreya Shekhar is a Partner at Greylock Partners - one of Silicon Valley's most storied venture firms - making her one of the youngest partners at a top-tier VC at age 23. A UC Berkeley M.E.T. graduate with dual degrees in EECS and Business Administration, she brings rare operator credibility to investing, having served as founding engineer at three Greylock portfolio companies (Rockset, Abnormal Security, Bedrock Security) before crossing the table. She focuses on early-stage AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and developer tooling, backed by a foundation in code, a passion for autonomous systems, and an early obsession with AI that started with reading Nick Bostrom's Superintelligence in high school.
Niko Bonatsos
Niko Bonatsos is a Greek-born, Stanford-educated venture capitalist who spent 15 years at General Catalyst building one of Silicon Valley's strongest seed-stage consumer investment track records - backing Snap, Discord, Mercor, ClassDojo, and Dubsmash before most people knew they existed. In January 2026 he left General Catalyst to co-found Verdict Capital with Michael Fertik, targeting a $300M fund focused on seed/Series A investing in consumer and AI, with a particular contrarian bet on consumer AI being underappreciated in an enterprise-saturated market.
Carolynn Levy
Carolynn Levy is Managing Director of Legal and Partner at Y Combinator, the world's most successful startup accelerator. She revolutionized early-stage venture capital by creating the SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) in 2013, a five-page document that replaced complex convertible notes and now powers roughly 90% of pre-seed deals. Before joining YC in 2012, she spent over a decade at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati representing Silicon Valley startups and investors. Working alongside her husband Jon Levy, YC co-founder Jessica Livingston, and CFO Kirsty Nathoo, she has guided thousands of founders through legal fundamentals and helped shape the modern startup funding landscape.