I am fortunate enough to be able to do some angel investing. I invest in three different areas:
1. Data For All
Never before have we been able to record and learn from so much data. The potential for new knowledge here is beyond imagination, but to date we're still in the stone ages for tooling to mine and learn from this new massive knowledge source. If we can improve these tools, and make data more accessible to all, we can grow the potential of human intelligence.
This has been my personal mission for the past 12 years. My personal projects in this space include Chartio, The Data School and my upcoming book The Informed Company.
Recently, with the exit of Chartio, I've been able to support other projects with advising and financing. So far they include:
DBT - Data Transformation
DataFold - Proactive data observability
Omni - Fast exploration data/BI tool with automatic data modeling
2. Solutions to problems I had 1st hand as a SaaS founder
When I come across great ideas I wish I had when I was a SaaS founder I get excited to contribute. Most of these companies I met through Y Combinator.
Journalize - Single source of truth for financial teams
Founderpath - Where bootstrapped founders get capital
Trigger.dev - Effortless automation built for developers
Clearspace - An advanced Screen Time to help you limit the wasted/distracted time on your phone
Index - Planning made easy.
3. Supporting brilliant friends in their missions
I've found that one of the most rewarding (and necessary) components of having a big mission and company is to work with, support and be supported by other amazing people on their amazing missions.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have great friends, relationships, and network. I've long supported friends in many different ways (as they've supported me) and recently I've been able to also support some of these awesome people and missions financially as well.