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Founder Collective

VC firm · Cambridge MA, USA · Founded 2009 · Active in 2026

← Power Law Ranking

A public taster of the full Dealroom platform — request a demo to explore live deal flow, full investor history, and team intel. · Last updated 15 Apr 2026 · Methodology

34 Power Law outcomes Power Law Ranking #12 · 34 Power Law outcomes · Active 2026
Enterprise value ↑ 17% 5y
$322B
Unicorns ↑ 26% 5y
29
Decacorns → 5y
5
Thoroughbreds ↑ 32% 5y
33
Featured in #12Power Law Investor Ranking · Global · 2026 Top 0.5%by Seed → $100M+ revenue outcomes

Founder Collective was founded in 2009 by Eric Paley, David Frankel, and Micah Rosenbloom in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York. The firm is Seed-only by design — its explicit philosophy is that the interests of Seed-stage and venture-stage investors diverge, and Founder Collective sides with founders by staying small and not following on at later stages.

Notable bets include The Trade Desk, Coupang, SeatGeek, and PillPack.

Portfolio analysis

The 34 Founder Collective Power Law outcomes ($100M+ revenue and above).

Snapshot of where the outcomes are concentrated by country, sector, and stage entered.

By countryCount
  1. USA30
  2. India2
  3. Israel1
  4. UK1
By sectorCount
  1. eCommerce & Marketplaces7
  2. Fintech6
  3. Other B2B Software4
  4. Edtech3
  5. Transportation3
  6. AI2
  7. Marketing2
  8. Biotech & Life Sciences2
  9. Other2
  10. Robotics1
  11. Cybersecurity1
  12. Health Tech & Medtech1
By stage enteredCount
  1. Series B+4
  2. Series A5
  3. Seed23
01 · Portfolio market map

Founder Collective's 34 Power Law outcomes.

Toggle between a sector landscape and a world map. Both views respond to the stage and outcome-tier filters. The faded names at the bottom of bigger boxes are part of the full list — click "+ N more" to reveal them.

Stage entered
Outcome tier
Region
Group by
34 of 34 Power Law outcomes
Logos hosted by Dealroom; click any chip to open the company in app.dealroom.co. The dot inside each chip shows the company's highest tier — red Gigacorn, violet Centicorn/Decacorn, lavender Unicorn, blue Thoroughbred, green Colt. Tiers are inclusive: a Unicorn (e.g. Klarna) also matches the Thoroughbred filter, a Decacorn also matches Unicorn and Thoroughbred, and so on up the ladder. Colt is a separate axis (high-growth, smaller revenue) and only matches itself. Map dots use the same colour code; hover for details. Sectors are mutually exclusive (priority-ordered classification). Stage entered = the round Founder Collective first invested in (where data is available — coverage 93%).
02 · Origin of portfolio founders

Where Founder Collective's founders come from — and where they study.

71 founders across the 34 Power Law outcomes — split by country of origin, university attended, and the company they worked at before founding. Stanford University and Alphabet | Google are the deepest single pipelines.

LocationCount
United States46
United Kingdom5
Canada3
Nigeria2
Cameroon2
China2
Poland2
Mexico1
Venezuela1
Ukraine1
+1 more →
UniversityCount
Stanford University8
Massachusetts Institute of Technology6
UCLA3
University of Waterloo2
University College London2
University of Michigan2
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)2
Cornell University2
Georgia Institute of Technology2
Columbia University2
+26 more →
Origin companyCount
Alphabet | Google7
Microsoft5
Meta3
uSwitch3
Hybris2
Digital Turbine2
Twitch2
LinkedIn2
iRobot2
Sift1
+25 more →
Origin = country a founder is born in or grew up in (founders may have multiple origins; counts include all entries). University = highest-listed degree. Origin company = a previous employer where the founder was tagged before starting their current company. Explore the full Sequoia infographic on Thoroughbreds & Unicorns →
03 · Key people

Key people at Founder Collective.

David Frankel
David Frankel
Managing Partner
Forbes Midas 2025 · #27
The Trade Desk
Photos sourced from public partner pages (firm websites + Wikipedia). Roster and Midas ranks are sourced from the official Forbes 2025 Midas List (compiled by Forbes & TrueBridge Capital Partners). Notable-deal attributions are the most-cited public lead deal for each partner; corrections welcome at [email protected].
04 · Compare with peers

How does Founder Collective stack up?

Founder Collective in orange, your selection in blue and other colours. Pick from the global roster of 35 peer investors — filter by region or hit "Find similar shapes" to auto-pick the three closest. The funnel matrix mirrors the spider chart on the ranking page; the line chart shows each firm's share of global unicorns minted that year — peaks reveal vintage years.

Compare against

Stage focus

Companies by entry stage and outcome tier

Sector focus

Companies per investor across the 10 highest-volume sectors

Share of new unicorns per year

% of all global unicorns minted that year, year by year
Source: Dealroom Power Law dataset. Investors shown are the 2026 Power Law top 35 by combined entry-to-outcome score, drawn from the overview and locations_data sheets. Funnel-matrix axes rescale per-axis using the maximum among the currently selected investors, so the polygons always fill the chart for shape comparison.

Want the full picture on Founder Collective?

The Dealroom platform tracks every round, every co-investor, and every portfolio company in real time — across 25,000+ investors and 3M+ companies globally.

View Founder Collective in app → Book a demo
Data as of 15 Apr 2026 · Source: Dealroom Power Law dataset · Methodology
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