Company "mafias" are all the rage, and we here at PIN love to dig deep into the most influential Tech Mafias, especially since we're huge on democratizing access to startup investing by supporting communities with all the legal and bureaucratic work when it comes to setting up a community investment club.
This week we have the Reddit Mafia aboard the tech ship. Compared to other Mafias we've covered so far, this one falls short in terms of the number of companies founded. Many of those that have raised money are what we'd typically classify as "rising stars," in other words, they're still in their early stages and not necessarily successful. Even so, it's interesting to compare the different groups and see which Tech Mafias are stronger and which ones are weaker.
If you missed our previous posts, make sure to check the Twitter Mafia, Lyft Mafia, Stripe Mafia, Netflix Mafia, InstaCart Mafia, Dropbox Mafia, Revolut Mafia, Tesla Mafia, and Square Mafia articles. Investing in fellow coworkers' startups, especially as a community or alumni group, is one of the best ways to get in early on deals as well as support the ideas and ventures of people you love and admire. Who knows what's around the corner in your own network and community!
Founder: Gunjit Singh
Reddit Role: Principal Product Manager, Ads
Capital Raised: $25.5M
Investors: Foundation Capital
Stage: Series A
Gunjit is the co-founder and Chief Business Officer at Electric Sheep Robotics, a technology company that develops autonomous lawn mowing for large landscapers and property owners. He used to lead the Ads Optimization Research team at Facebook.
Founder: Arjun Bhargava
Reddit Role: Engineering Manager
Capital Raised: $14M
Investors: a16z
Stage: Seed
Within two months of launch, Rye Protocol got featured in Forbes and several other publications. Rye builds developer tools and APIs to build eCommerce experiences. Before Rye, Arjun co-founded Parking for Me.
Founder: Matt (MJ) Joanou
Reddit Role: Global Agency Lead
Capital Raised: $4.2M
Investors: Greycroft
Stage: Seed
Before Stakeholder Labs and Reddit, Matt worked at Mural (a mind mapping software) as the Head of Partnerships and at Google as the Head of Media Partnerships.
Founder: Elena Ikonomovska
Reddit Role: Data Scientist
Capital Raised: $4M
Investors: FJ Labs
Stage: Seed
Elena previously worked as the head of ML&AI at Change.org and a PhD student/software engineer at Google.
Founder: Cameron Brain
Reddit Role: Director of Product
Capital Raised: $20.6M
Investors: EPIC Ventures
Stage: Series B
Apart from Reddit, Cameron has previously worked at Mission Motorcycles, Open Box Technologies, and BicyclePartsDirect.com. Now he is the CEO and co-founder of EveryoneSocial, an employee advocacy platform.
Founder: Kevin Walsh
Reddit Role: Senior Solutions Engineer
Capital Raised: $7.5M
Investors: Techstars
Stage: Seed
Kevin is the co-founder & CTO at Onward, a digital freight marketplace that connects retailers with professional delivery teams.
Founder: Samantha Carow
Reddit Role: Engineering manager
Capital Raised: $6M
Investors: Anthemis Group
Stage: Seed
While she is not working on DwellWell, Samantha coaches women who are new to the tech industry. She has also spoken at the Women in Tech Summit and Grace Hopper Celebration.
Founder: Alexis Ohanian, Elizabeth Garvin
Reddit Role: Founder, Founding Team, Chief of Staff
Capital Raised: $750M
Before starting Seven Seven Six (a VC firm), he was the co-founder and managing partner of Initialized Capital and also a partner at Y Combinator. Elizabeth was the Executive Assistant of Alexis at Reddit and then became part of the Founding Team and Chief of Staff at 776.
Founder: Hadi Solh
Reddit Role: Investor/Advisor
Capital Raised: $3.7M
Investors: Supernode Ventures
Stage: Seed
Hadi is the co-founder at Flexbase, a financial application that offers credit card solutions for construction and businesses. His prime focus is operating and investing in disruptive tech.
Founder: Alexis Ohanian
Reddit Role: Co Founder
Capital Raised: $1.4B+
Alexis was the co-founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital, a VC firm focused on helping software engineers and designers with their first seed checks. Most recently he founded Seven Seven Six, another VC firm.
