Spearhead (Angel Program)

Spearhead was conceived and founded by Ravikant and Fagnan to turn founders into angel investors and democratize angel investing; its founding year is given as either 2017 or 2018. AngelList provides technology, legal and accounting back-office services, and Accomplice is the largest investor, but each Spearhead fund is independent of Accomplice and its investments do not require Accomplice’s approval.⁠[1][2][3][4]

The first cohort, Spearhead 1, selected 19 founders from about 1,500 applications, including founders of PillPack, Handy, Clearbit, Rippling, Shippo, Klaviyo, and Whoop. Each received $200,000 of investable capital at first, with up to $1 million for strong investors, and Spearhead set up the legal entities they needed to invest. Fagnan said geographic representation was a priority for the first cohort and that the organizers worried participants might not actually write checks, since they had deliberately skewed toward people who did not consider themselves angels.⁠[1][1][4][4][4][4][4][1][1]

On September 12, 2018, Spearhead opened applications for its second cohort, with a deadline of October 31. By then the 19 members of the first cohort had invested more than $2 million in about 50 seed and pre-seed companies, co-invested with Founders Fund, Greylock, and Marc Benioff, and been mentored by investors including Keith Rabois, Elad Gil, Daniel Gross, Naval Ravikant, and Jeff Fagnan. Second-cohort founders started with a $200,000 fund and could receive up to $1 million to invest over two years if they made promising investments.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

Ravikant explained that, unlike venture firms’ scout programs, Spearhead was not training scouts but building full-fledged venture capitalists: members earn carry in their own funds rather than a slice of someone else’s. Spearhead holds regular in-person gatherings and office hours at which Ravikant, Fagnan, Accomplice’s Cack Wilhelm, and AngelList’s Jake Zeller give feedback on members’ deals.⁠[1][1]

In October 2019, Spearhead planned to raise about $100 million for its third fund so that each selected founder would receive $1 million to invest, five times the earlier amount; the earlier Spearhead I was a $25 million vehicle and Spearhead II a $35 million vehicle. Each founder would receive 15% carry in their fund, with Spearhead keeping 5%, and standout participants could receive another $10 million to invest at the end of the two-year program.⁠[3][3][3][3]

By then 35 founders had completed the program; earlier members included Shippo co-founder Laura Behrens Wu, Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, and Rippling co-founder Prasanna Sankar. The third cohort was expected to admit about 15 people; applicants had to live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, or New York City and run, or have very recently run, a startup, and Spearhead encouraged them to invest at the pre-seed stage.⁠[3][3][3][3]

On November 10, 2020, Spearhead opened applications for its fourth cohort and announced $100 million for selected founders.⁠[5][5]

On September 20, 2021, co-founder Jeff Fagnan announced the opening of applications for a new cohort and the doubling of new funds to $2 million.⁠[5]

In October 2026, when announcing that it was leading Conway ResearchConway ResearchConway Research is an artificial intelligence lab founded by Sigil Wen that works on efficient models, inference engines, and personal AI that runs on devices users already own; its first product is Underdog, a locally run personal assistant. In October 2026, Andreessen Horowitz announced that it was leading the company’s first funding round.Open the full entry’s first funding round, Andreessen Horowitz wrote that Naval Ravikant had made the company’s founder, Sigil Wen, the youngest member of Spearhead.⁠[6][6]

As of October 2026, each selected founder starts with a $2 million fund, with a first tranche of $1 million and a second $1 million tranche after the first is invested in compliance with the contract and investing guidelines; a few founders who invest well can receive a second fund of up to $10 million, and follow-on capital is available for breakout portfolio companies. Founders earn carry on their funds, joining is free, accreditation is not required, and founders may invite accredited investors such as friends, family, and venture firms to invest in their funds.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

The program mainly targets technology founders, especially technical founders, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, and nearby areas who have typically raised a seed round or later from notable venture firms; each cohort usually admits 10 to 15 people. Members must make all their tech investments through their Spearhead fund while it has capital, keep the average pre-money valuation of their portfolio below $15 million, and discuss their portfolio with Spearhead once a quarter.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

The first four cohorts included 68 founders whose companies were worth more than $75 billion combined, 17 of them unicorns, including Near Protocol, Neuralink, Segment, Opendoor, PillPack, Shippo, Rippling, Twist Bioscience, Scale, Sourcegraph, and Vercel. As of October 2026, Spearhead had 81 founder members, had funded 794 startups with $112 million invested, and its portfolio companies had raised $4 billion in follow-on funding.⁠[2][7]

Spearhead: Official website: https://spearhead.co/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]

X: Public account: https://x.com/spearhead (opens in a new window)⁠[8]