SV Angel

Overview

SV Angel is a San Francisco-based seed-stage venture firm founded by renowned investor Ron Conway that made its name with early stakes in Airbnb, Pinterest and Snap, then walked away from traditional venture fundraising in 2018 to invest as a family angel operation (TechCrunch; TechCrunch). Its story is unusual in venture capital: a firm that grew famous, fractured internally, and then deliberately shrank back to its founder’s roots.

This profile covers the venture firm SV Angel and follows it from its 2009 founding through its seed funds, its split with co-founder David Lee, its 2018 retreat, and its investment in the trading-card platform Alt.

A seed fund built on Conway’s network

When SV Angel was established nine years before TechCrunch’s June 2018 report — placing its founding in 2009 — Conway teamed with former Googler David Lee, who had helped lead aspects of Google’s business development and seemingly took over management of the firm with Conway’s blessing (TechCrunch). The model drew directly on Conway’s own history: dating back to 1998 he had written checks largely on his own behalf, including early investments in Google and PayPal that established his reputation as an investor with the right connections (TechCrunch).

The firm’s seed portfolio grew into an enviable collection. TechCrunch’s 2016 reporting named Airbnb and Pinterest among its investments, “among dozens of others,” and its 2018 account added Snap to the list of stakes alongside Airbnb and Pinterest (TechCrunch; TechCrunch). Fund sizes stayed modest by venture standards: the firm closed its last fund of that era at $75 million in 2014, and in March 2016 — when TechCrunch described it as a seven-year-old firm — it was targeting $46 million for its next fund, a figure the Conways had framed on stage as a return to its seed investing roots (TechCrunch). By then the firm was managed by Conway’s son Topher Conway along with general partners Brian Pokorny, Kevin Carter and Robert Pollack, plus one principal and two associates (TechCrunch).

The split, and the retreat to angel investing

Not all was well inside the firm even as its portfolio shone. In May 2015 Lee, who had largely been steering SV Angel, suddenly parted ways with the firm, with both Conways taking over as co-managing partners (TechCrunch). By 2018 Lee and Conway were moving toward what TechCrunch called an acrimonious split, culminating in a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed seven months before the June 2018 report, in which Lee alleged that Conway was withholding millions of dollars from him (TechCrunch). Conway denied the allegations and said he would vigorously defend against Lee’s “meritless claims,” and TechCrunch noted that no further court filings had appeared since (TechCrunch). Lee went on to run a Los Angeles-based seed-stage firm called Refactor Capital, which closed its debut fund at $50 million (TechCrunch).

In June 2018 SV Angel announced it was getting out of the traditional venture business: going forward, Ron and Topher Conway would invest their own money in startups (TechCrunch). Several of its most recent checks — to chatbot startup Hugging Face, hormone-testing company Modern Fertility and electric-skateboard company Boosted Boards — had come from its existing, outside-investor-backed funds, which would make no new investments but would continue follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies (TechCrunch). That last fund had closed at $53 million in late 2016, and partners Pokorny, Carter and Pollack would become advisors (TechCrunch). The new checks would be smaller — $25,000 to $100,000 — a deliberate alignment with the “thousands of firms and individuals” now investing in seed rounds, and, as TechCrunch put it, “a return to Ron Conway’s roots” (TechCrunch).

The retreat did not end the firm’s dealmaking entirely. In March 2021 TechCrunch listed SV Angel among the investors in Alt’s launch rounds, and Crunchbase News listed it among the investors in Alt’s Series A (TechCrunch; Crunchbase News).

What this profile does not claim

• Post-2018 fund activity is not stated: secondary coverage reports a $269 million growth fund in 2022, but no fully-read editorial source in this pass confirms it, so the 2018 pledge is left standing here rather than declared reversed.
• The outcome of Lee’s breach-of-contract suit is not claimed; the last verified position is Conway’s denial and the absence of further filings as of June 2018.
• The precise founding month in 2009 is not claimed; the year is derived from TechCrunch’s age descriptions in 2016 and 2018.
• Current leadership, fund status and portfolio size are not stated.