SV Angel

Founder Ron Conway worked in marketing at National Semiconductor from 1973 to 1979, then cofounded Altos Computer Systems in 1979 and served as its president and CEO until 1990, taking the company public on Nasdaq in 1982. He has been an angel investor since the mid-1990s; from 1998 he wrote checks largely on his own behalf, making early investments in Google and PayPalPayPalPayPal Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: PYPL) is an American digital payments company that operates payment brands including PayPal, Venmo, Braintree, and Xoom, providing online and in-store payments, money transfers, and consumer credit to consumers and merchants worldwide.Open the full entry that established his reputation as a well-connected investor.⁠[1][1][2]

In 2009, Conway founded SV Angel together with David Lee, a former Google business development executive who, with Conway’s blessing, took over day-to-day management of the firm; early members also included Brian Pokorny, another former Googler, and Conway’s son Topher Conway. SV Angel’s official X account was registered in April 2009.⁠[3][2][2][2][4]

In September 2010, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington stumbled into a secret dinner of “super angel” investors at Bin 38, where the investors were alleged to coordinate on investment matters; the episode became known as AngelGate. SV Angel partner David Lee attended both gatherings. Ron Conway, who did not attend, then wrote to the participants that he totally disagreed with their values and motives as investors, that instead of complaining about deal structures, terms, and valuations they should help entrepreneurs, and that the gatherings were “despicable and embarrassing for the tech community,” adding that he regretted David Lee had been involved. Participant Dave McClure then posted a tweet, later deleted, accusing Conway of throwing the others “under a bus” after Lee had attended both meetings.⁠[5][6][6][7][7][6][5][5][5][5][7][7]

On September 26, Conway issued a clarification through TechCrunch, saying that David Lee had not wanted to go to the Bin 38 dinner and that the two had talked and agreed that he should go; he called Lee a close friend and partner and said this was the last time he would comment on the matter.⁠[6][6]

In 2014, SV Angel closed a fund at $75 million, larger than its earlier seed funds.⁠[8][3]

In May 2015, David Lee, who had been steering SV Angel’s day-to-day operations, abruptly left. The firm announced that he had made a personal decision to spend more time with his family in Los Angeles, effective immediately, and that Ron Conway and Topher Conway, father and son, would become co-managing partners. Lee later founded the Los Angeles seed firm Refactor Capital in 2016.⁠[8][8][8][3]

SV Angel’s sixth fund closed at $53.125 million, above the $46 million target disclosed that March; the firm said it would return to smaller early-stage investing. The fund was then managed by Topher Conway, with Brian Pokorny, Kevin Carter, and Robert Pollack as general partners; by Crunchbase’s count, SV Angel had made 695 investments, and its portfolio had seen 11 IPOs and about 200 acquisitions.⁠[3][3][8][3][3][3][3]

David Lee sued Ron Conway in Marin County Superior Court, claiming Conway had not paid him promised fees and agreed-upon shares in investments such as Airbnb, Pinterest, and Snapchat; he sought $3.5 million and a declaration of his rights to future exit proceeds, which could total $15 million to $20 million. In a statement, Conway said a dispute had arisen over compliance with settlement agreement terms and that, before it could be resolved, Lee filed suit demanding money SV Angel did not believe he was entitled to, calling the claims “meritless” and saying the SV Angel funds would vigorously defend against them. Lee said the two had signed a settlement when he left, with many terms proposed by Conway, and that he simply wanted Conway to honor it.⁠[9][9][9][9][9][9][9][9]

SV Angel announced it was leaving the traditional venture business and would not raise new funds from outside investors; going forward, Ron Conway and Topher Conway would invest their own money in startups, with initial checks reduced to $25,000 to $100,000, while the existing outside funds would make no new investments and only follow on in existing portfolio companies. Partners Brian Pokorny, Kevin Carter, and Robert Pollak became advisors. At the time, no new court filings had appeared in Lee’s lawsuit.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2]

SV Angel set up its first growth fund, SV Angel Growth I LP, which reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission a total offering of $269.4 million, fully sold, with a first sale date of February 25, 2022; the filing names Christopher Conway as managing member of the general partner. The growth fund mainly invests in Series B and later rounds and is led by Ashvin Bachireddy, a cofounder of Geodesic Capital and former head of growth-stage investing at Andreessen Horowitz.⁠[10][10][10][10][11][1][1]

In 2023, SV Angel founded the AI Ad Hoc Working Group, convening leading AI companies on problems none of them could solve alone, to consolidate policy inputs and advocate for AI safety.⁠[12][1]

SV Angel Growth II, L.P. reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission a total offering of $330 million, fully sold, with a first sale date of January 9, 2025.⁠[13][13]

SV Angel took part in the first funding round of AI lab 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, completed in April 2026, alongside Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla VenturesKhosla VenturesKhosla Ventures (KV) is an American venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It made heavy early bets on clean technology, became OpenAI’s first venture capital investor in 2019, and its portfolio also includes companies such as DoorDash, Block (formerly Square), Impossible Foods, and Rocket Lab.Open the full entry, Hummingbird VenturesHummingbird VenturesHummingbird Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by Barend Van den Brande and based in London and Antwerp, Belgium, that invests in “outlier” founders without limiting itself to particular sectors or regions; its early investments include Peak Games, Kraken, Deliveroo, BillionToOne, and Lovable.Open the full entry, Anthology, and Breakneck.⁠[14]

Former White House press secretary Jay Carney joined SV Angel as a general partner and head of public policy and communications. He had spent more than eleven years running global policy and communications at Amazon and Airbnb, served as White House press secretary to President Obama from 2011 to 2014, and before government worked as a reporter for Time magazine for 20 years. SV Angel said it aims to become the most effective bridge between the technology ecosystem and policymakers, with Carney leading the effort to connect portfolio companies and their founders with policymakers in Washington and state capitals.⁠[12][15][12][12][12][12][12]

The Project Blueprint initiative launched at the same time aims to bring technology leaders and lawmakers together to forge non-partisan consensus on hard AI policy problems that can survive changes in power, covering frontier model governance and safety, competition with China, workforce transition and wealth concentration, and the energy demands of data centers. SV Angel wrote in the plan that the concerns about AI are legitimate, including AI’s offensive cyber capabilities, inadequate safeguards for children, job displacement, and community backlash against data centers, and that if the gains from AI accrue only to a handful of companies and their investors, the politics of AI will end badly.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

As of October 2026, SV Angel consists of an early-stage seed fund and a late-stage growth fund, investing mainly in consumer and enterprise software companies, with a primarily US portfolio. The seed fund typically invests $200,000 per company and the growth fund invests in Series B and later rounds; it does not lead rounds, usually writes a smaller check within a round, and does not take board seats. It calls its way of helping the “Inflection Point Approach,” supporting founders at critical moments such as fundraising, M&A, and business development, and describes itself as a “routing layer” for the technology ecosystem.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][11][11][16][11][17]

As of October 2026, Ron Conway is founder and managing partner; the other managing partners are Ronny Conway, Topher Conway, and Ashvin Bachireddy, who leads the growth fund, and the general partners include Andrea Wang and Jay Carney. Ronny Conway was one of the first partners at Andreessen Horowitz, heading seed and early-stage investing, and founded the early-stage firm A.Capital in 2014; Topher Conway joined SV Angel in 2009 and works closely with portfolio companies such as OpenAI, Stripe, and Coinbase.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

SV Angel says it supports causes including racial justice, access to healthcare, and reducing income inequality and gun violence, supports the Giving Pledge, and helped launch sf.citi to mobilize San Francisco’s tech sector for civic action. It also launched an AI open letter titled “Build AI for a Better Future,” calling on everyone to build and use AI to improve people’s lives; companies including OpenAI, Meta, Google, and Microsoft signed it, and as of October 2026 it had 709 signatories.⁠[18][18][19][19][19][19][19][19]

SV Angel: Official website: https://svangel.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

X: Public account: https://x.com/svangel (opens in a new window)⁠[4]

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 profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sv-angel (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

Medium: Official account: https://medium.com/@svangel (opens in a new window)⁠[17]