1984 Ventures

No buzzwords. No hype. We invest in founders using software to solve real world problems.

How we invest

We focus on seed rounds. It’s what we know and love and where we provide the most value
We are drawn to founders with industry insights and a strong engineering culture
We are flexible on the mechanics. We can use a SAFE plus pro-rata or a priced round, and can lead or participate.

How we operate

We don't take board seats. We prefer to be in your speed dial and get the late-night call
We make intros that matter
We help you recruit an A+ team and assist with fundraising

Ramy Adeeb

General Partner

An entrepreneur and investor, Ramy is founder and CEO of Snip.it (Acquired by Yahoo, where he served as a product executive) and one of the earliest engineers at Tellme Networks (Acquired by Microsoft). Ramy started his investing career at Khosla Venture where he worked with investors Vinod Khosla and Pierre Lamond on many investments including Groupme (acquired by Skype), Square (NASDAQ:SQ), and Storify (acquired by LiveFyre). He holds a BA and MS in Computer Science from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford.

Aaron Michel

Partner

Named to venture capital’s 40 Under 40 by VC Journal in 2020, Aaron is the co-founder of PathSource, an edtech startup that rose to be the top career app in the App Store until its acquisition in 2017. Aaron also created the online game Fantasy Politics for the 2012 election. Inducted into the annual Innovation Rockstar list by the Boston Business Journal, Aaron has written for Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company and a range of business outlets. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Farzad Soleimani

Healthcare Partner

A VC by day and an ER physician by night, Farzad has over 15 years of experience at the intersection of healthcare and entrepreneurship. He is the founder of eTherapi, a pioneering telemedicine company, and the founding co-director of the Texas Medical Center Biodesign Innovation Program. Farzad started his investing career at Mohr Davidow Ventures, completed his residency training at Baylor and earned his MBA, MD, MS, and BS from Stanford University. He is on faculty at Baylor Medical School, Rice Business School, and Rice Bioengineering Department.

Andy Rachleff

Founder of Benchmark Capital

Michael Smith

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University

Jim Messina

Chief of staff for operations under President Obama

Mohammed Mansour

Chairman of Mansour Group, a global conglomerate and GM's largest distributor globally

Drew Uher

Founder and CEO at Homelight

Kyle Oppenheim

VP of Engineering at Groupon and Director of eng at Facebook

Jennifer Pollock

Head of content Marketing at Square

Greg Pal

Founder and CBO at Automat.ai and VP at Nuance

Daniele Codega

Partner at Work & Co. Previously Head of Design at Reuters, Creative Director at HuffPost

Dear Investor,

The story of entrepreneurship is often reminiscent of David and Goliath: a small and nimble startup rises up to challenge the large, evil incumbent. But with time, David becomes Goliath. Courage is replaced with defenses, and innovation with brute-force. That's why the symbolism of Epic Games' attack on Apple is genius...

In August, Apple removed the popular game Fortnite from the App Store after it introduced a direct payment option that circumvented Apple's 30% revenue cut policy. Immediately after, Fortnite's maker Epic Games published a parody of the "1984" ad called "Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite." (In the unlikely event you have never heard us talk about the original ad, you can see it here.) In the Fortnite parody, the villain is an apple while the heroine is Fortnite. The parody ends with a call to action: "Apple is blocking Fortnite. Join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming '1984.'"

Despite a $2 trillion market cap, Apple had thus far managed to maintain its David-like image. Epic Games has put a crack in that narrative. How this fight ends remains unclear, but the crack is here to stay. And so is the underlying message: Monopolies are bad for innovation. We tip our hat to Epic Games for its fight (and highly recommend watching the Fortnite commercial below).

Fund News

This month two of our companies announced their Series A rounds. Routable, which provides an API and B2B payment platform, announced a Series A led by Lee Fixel. And PadSplit, which applies tech to the Gordian Knot of America's affordable housing challenges, announced a Series A led by Core. In other news, our portfolio company Properly has been featured in this front page story in Canada's Financial Times for its innovative solution for homebuying during the current economic crisis. And our startup Fairmarkit was named in CB Insights' list of fastest-growing fintech startups.

Without further ado, here are your must-reads for September

1, Epic's Epic 1984 Video

A brilliant parody. (If you have not seen the original from 1984, you should watch it first here.) Read Article →

2. Rethinking the App Store

In this thoughtful (and slightly philosophical) article, Stratechery's Ben Thompson chronicles the evolution of the App Store and how a 30% take from application revenue by Apple on the iPhone or by Google on Android has become the norm. (Compared with 0% on the desktop.) Read Article →

3. Walmart+ will finally launch in September. Can it compete with Amazon Prime?

Walmart is finally launching a response to Amazon Prime, Walmart+. But will Walmart+'s (we realize it does not roll off the tongue) offer of lower-priced grocery delivery, discount gas and a self-checkout experience at Walmart stores beat Amazon Prime's menu of benefits? It looks like an uphill climb for Walmart. But as we said above, monopolies are bad for innovation. We look forward to seeing how the entry of a new player benefits innovation and consumers. Read Article →

4. Five Things We Learned From the Surge of Cloud Software Filings

It's a busy month for tech IPO filings, particularly Cloud Software. This month Snowflake, Asana, Palantir, JFrog and Sumo Logic all filed to go public. This article summarizes some of the learnings from the filings. Tl;dr: cloud software providers have amazing retention rates (in the case of Snowflake 158%), most have saved money during the pandemic due to the cancelation of business travel and the virtualization of company and sales events, and some cited "political influence" as a potential risk, a subtle reference to the Trump administration's unusual involvement in a recent cloud deal. Read Article →

5. This startup will teach your dog to talk

Ever wondered what your dog is thinking? Now you can ask and get an answer - maybe. Check out this startup, and definitely watch the video on the homepage. Read Article →

The monopoly issue, September 2020
The splintering of the Internet, August 2020
Our Q2 Update, July 2020
How did we get here, June 2020
Operating during a pandemic, May 2020
An update, April 2020
An epidemic of misinformaation, March 2020
The disruption issue, February 2020
Our end of year letter
The fake news issue, December 2020
The China culture clash, November 2019
Q3 Update, October 2019
The WeWork debacle, September 2019
The rise of Shopify, August 2019
Q2 Update, July 2019