Spearhead

Overview

Spearhead is a founder-to-investor fund created in 2017 by AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant and Accomplice’s Jeff Fagnan, which gives startup founders capital to run their own investment funds (TechCrunch). It scaled from $200,000 first checks to $100 million funds, and led Alt’s $75 million Series B in 2021 (TechCrunch).This profile covers Spearhead, the Ravikant and Fagnan fund — not a scout program, a distinction its founders insisted on — and follows it from its $25 million beginnings through its $100 million funds to its Alt lead.

Founders backing founders, with their own funds

Spearhead was designed around a simple premise: founders who are well connected and knowledgeable about startups can become effective angel investors if they are given real capital and real carry (TechCrunch). Its first fund, Spearhead I, was a $25 million vehicle that initially provided founders with $200,000 of investment capital, followed by Spearhead II, a $35 million vehicle (TechCrunch). By October 2019 the plan for the third fund was roughly $100 million, giving founders $1 million each to invest in technology startups of their choosing — five times the original capital (TechCrunch). Each founder was allotted 15% carry in their own fund, while Spearhead kept 5%, and standout leads could receive a further $10 million to invest at the end of the two-year program (TechCrunch).

The early leads show the intended profile. Previous Spearhead leads by 2019 included Shippo co-founder and chief executive Laura Behrens Wu, Scale AI founder and chief executive Alexandr Wang, and Rippling co-founder and chief technology officer Prasanna Sankar, and 35 founders had completed the program (TechCrunch). To be eligible as a lead at that time, a person had to live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston or New York City and run, or very recently have run, a startup, and the firm planned to accept around 15 applicants for the third cohort (TechCrunch). Leads could invest in any technology startups, provided there was no existing equity relationship, and early Spearhead investments named in that coverage included ZeroDown, Altitude Networks, Scythe, Air Garage, Cloosiv, Height, O.School, PopSQL, Superplastic and Sword Health (TechCrunch).

Scaling the dollars, narrowing the classes

The fourth fund, announced in November 2020, kept the basic outline but changed what happened after the formal program finished (TechCrunch). Spearhead had raised $100 million for that fund, and top-performing founders would now get $5 million to stake a follow-on rolling fund, as determined by a limited-partner committee (TechCrunch). Half the fund was dedicated to follow-on investments, meaning $50 million would be invested in the pro-rata stakes of Spearhead investments (TechCrunch). Ravikant summed up the shift as scaling the dollars while reducing the classes, and Fagnan added that the aim was deeper, fewer bets (TechCrunch).

By that point, across three classes, 56 founders had joined the program, with eight unicorns represented, funding 380 startups with $18 million in capital (TechCrunch). Ravikant drew the line that defines the model: “We are an investor, we are not running a scout program,” adding that Spearhead aimed to be the first and most value-added limited partner in a new general partner’s career, pulling new funds into existence in the way Y Combinator pulls companies into existence (TechCrunch). The founders also named the program’s recurring flaw frankly: its leads invested too little, because angels used to writing $25,000 or $50,000 checks found $100,000 to $500,000 checks intimidating, even though the quality of the investing was very high (TechCrunch).

The Alt Series B lead, and what came after

Spearhead’s most visible break from its early-stage pattern came in November 2021, when it led Alt’s $75 million Series B at a valuation the company put at over $325 million (TechCrunch). TechCrunch introduced Spearhead in that report as “a new type of fund co-created by Jeff Fagnan and Naval Ravikant,” and listed the co-backers as Seven Seven Six, Vibe Capital, Breyer Capital, Shrug Capital, Apollo Projects, Hyperguap and A*, alongside athletes including Tom Brady, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Alex Morgan, Candace Parker and Marlon Humphrey (TechCrunch). The sources read do not disclose how much of the $75 million came from Spearhead itself, so no check size is claimed here; the verified fact is the lead role, as reported.

Later coverage gives the program a quieter coda rather than an ending. A March 2023 TechCrunch examination of solo general partners first described Spearhead as appearing no longer as public or active as before, then carried an update from Accomplice’s Jeff Fagnan: Spearhead had opted to be less public about its work, and had conducted 5 cohorts across 77 funds (TechCrunch). That 2023 figure is the latest verified data point in the sources read, and it is the reason this profile does not describe Spearhead as wound down: the evidence points to a program that went quieter, not one that stopped.

What this profile does not claim

• No headquarters city is claimed: the sources give the cities where leads had to live, not a headquarters, and those are not the same thing.
• No fund size, cohort, or activity after March 2023 is claimed, because no later figure was verified from a fully-read independent source.
• The split of Spearhead’s own contribution within Alt’s $75 million Series B was not disclosed, so only the lead role is stated.
• Aggregator totals for Spearhead’s funds or portfolio were not used, because they disagree with editorial reporting and are estimates rather than verified figures.
• The profile does not claim Spearhead is a conventional venture firm: its founders’ own distinction — investor and limited partner in new general partners, not a scout program — is the model described throughout.