Brandon Leonardo

Leonardo earned a computer science degree from San Jose State University, worked in engineering at Webs.com, and became AngelListAngelListAngelList is a startup investment platform company based in San Francisco, United States. Founded in 2010 by Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi, it began as a mailing list recommending startups to angel investors, went on to launch online fundraising, Syndicates (co-investing), rolling funds, and other products, and later shifted into a fund administration and back-office services platform for venture capital funds and private markets.Open the full entry’s first engineering hire.⁠[2]

He recalled that StartupBus founder Elias Bizannes introduced him to Naval RavikantNaval RavikantNaval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and angel investor and a co-founder of AngelList. Early on he co-founded the review site Epinions; he and Babak Nivi later grew AngelList out of the startup-fundraising blog Venture Hacks, and he co-founded the cryptocurrency hedge fund MetaStable Capital and Spearhead, which backs founders to make angel investments. His views on startups and life were compiled into the book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.Open the full entry, leading to his AngelList job. He met Apoorva Mehta in a coworking space and Max MullenMax MullenMax Mullen is an entrepreneur and angel investor, one of the three co-founders of the online grocery delivery platform Instacart, who has invested as an angel in the business payments platform Routable.Open the full entry while organizing the bus program; the three later founded Instacart.⁠[3]

He and Pek Pongpaet built Pinstagram, displaying Instagram pictures in a Pinterest-style layout. They took an idea discussed over Friday lunch through a weekend build and launch, followed by an iPad version. It was their third joint project.⁠[4]

In 2012, Leonardo, Apoorva Mehta, and Max Mullen founded Instacart, initially offering local grocery delivery in the San Francisco Bay Area.⁠[5]

In a PagerDuty interview that year, he described full-stack engineering ownership supported by a lean platform team, and separating critical ordering and signup workloads. He also emphasized coordination with product data, logistics, and physical delivery.⁠[6]

By 2017, he led catalog, search, retailer and brand engineering, having built the earliest product.⁠[2]

AngelList’s 2018 article identified him as one of its earliest employees and credited him with the twentieth commit in its codebase. It also linked his AMA documenting his engineering experience before Instacart.⁠[7]

In August 2020, home-cooked-meal platform Shef announced an $8.8 million financing involving Leonardo, Max Mullen, and other angel investors. The figure describes the round, not his individual contribution.⁠[8]

On July 8, 2021, incident-response platform Rootly announced a $3.2 million seed round and named Leonardo among its angel investors.⁠[9]

He subsequently explained on X that better tools could have reduced Instacart’s incident costs. Rootly offered what he had wished for at the time, motivating his investment.⁠[10]

In September 2021, insurance-payments platform Ascend raised a $5.5 million seed round led by First Round Capital, with Leonardo participating as an angel investor. The platform combines financing, collections, and payables.⁠[11]

On November 17, 2022, Race Capital announced Sematic’s $3 million seed round, naming Leonardo among the participating angels. Sematic develops an open-source machine-learning workflow platform.⁠[12]

In 2023, Instacart listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CART.⁠[5]

On March 27, 2024, he introduced the Instacart Developer Platform on X, describing APIs that enable partners including The New York Times, WW, and GE Appliances to add shoppable experiences to their applications.⁠[13]

On June 18, 2024, children’s digital-play developer Pok Pok announced a $6 million Series A led by Adjacent, with Leonardo among its angel investors. The release identified an Android version and STEM content as future plans.⁠[14]

Brandon Leonardo: Official website: https://www.brandonleonardo.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[1]

X Public Account @shiftb: Official account: https://x.com/shiftb (opens in a new window)⁠[15]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry Public Account: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonardo/ (opens in a new window)⁠[16]

Wellfound Public Account: Official account: https://wellfound.com/u/brandon (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

AngelList: Official website: https://www.angellist.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[18]

StartupBus: Official website: https://startupbus.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[19]

Instacart: Official website: https://company.instacart.com/about-us (opens in a new window)⁠[5]