Rahul Vohra

Rahul Vohra was born and raised in England. In an interview with EO, he recalled that he started programming at the age of eight; in another interview, he said the 286 computer his father left after finishing his doctoral thesis became his tool for learning to program, and he taught himself BASIC, C, and C++ in turn.⁠[1][2]

In 2005, Vohra completed his studies in computer science at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. Both the university’s history of computing and an alumni publication record this background. He later began a PhD but chose to drop out partway through and turned to entrepreneurship; this period does not constitute an earned doctorate.⁠[3][4][1]

Vohra co-founded Rapportive with Sam Stokes and Martin Kleppmann to provide Gmail users with background information on their contacts. It displayed the other party’s social profiles, recent posts, professional information, and blog alongside emails, so recipients did not have to leave their inbox frequently to look things up. Conrad Irwin and Lee Mallabone later became important members of the early team.⁠[3][4]

In a May 2010 interview in a Cambridge alumni publication, Vohra explained Rapportive as a tool he himself needed for managing relationships and email. The team combined public information with notes saved privately by individual users, and envisioned continuing to offer public information free of charge while exploring revenue through internal company data and CRM integrations. These were the product and business ideas of the time, not evidence of realized revenue.⁠[4]

In 2010, Rapportive was accepted into Y Combinator, and Vohra moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with the startup. He later recalled that he hoped to find funding and expansion opportunities there; the move also shifted his professional activity from Cambridge to the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem.⁠[2][1]

In 2012, LinkedIn acquired Rapportive. Vohra then led email integration work at LinkedIn, continuing to explore how to combine professional profiles with the email experience. The university’s case record notes that the acquisition allowed Rapportive to continue serving Gmail users. Vohra also began angel investing with proceeds from the sale of the company.⁠[5][3][2]

On October 23, 2013, Vohra introduced LinkedIn Intro on the official LinkedIn blog, bringing LinkedIn professional profiles and Rapportive technology to Apple Mail on the iPhone. Users could view a sender’s work history, shared connections, and education; it was initially available in English to members worldwide and supported email accounts such as Gmail, YahooYahooYahoo is an internet brand founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994, with email, search, news, finance, sports, and advertising businesses. It developed from a web directory into a portal, underwent major acquisitions and security incidents, and sold its operating business in 2017, when the original listed company became Altaba. Apollo-managed funds acquired the brand’s operating business in 2021. Yahoo launched the AI answer service Scout in 2026.Open the full entry, AOLAOLAOL is an American internet brand offering a news portal, email, and membership services. Its history dates to an online-services company founded in 1985.Open the full entry, and iCloud.⁠[5]

In an Antler interview, Vohra recalled that he left LinkedIn in February 2014 and registered a new company the same month, and after a period of rest began preparing Superhuman. That year, LinkedIn announced that it would shut down the Intro service on March 7 and asked users to remove the related configuration to avoid problems sending and receiving email; ending Intro and continuing to support Rapportive were two separate arrangements.⁠[6][7]

In the fourth quarter of 2014, Vohra raised about $800,000 for Superhuman through investor relationships he had built earlier. Valuing the brand’s spread through email signatures, he negotiated through a broker to buy superhuman.com; he recalls that the parties agreed on a price of $175,000, paid over seven years without interest.⁠[6]

Vohra first spent about six weeks refining the product description, then created wireframes and enlisted the design firm Ueno to help make the concept concrete. Conrad Irwin and Vivek Sodera became co-founders. In the summer of 2015, the team began writing product code, developing Superhuman around email processing speed, keyboard operation, and a clean interface.⁠[6][8][9]

Vohra recalls that Superhuman’s first paying customers came mainly through word of mouth and investor networks. The team at one point limited new customers to about four or five per week to leave time to fix problems; he personally gave one-on-one onboarding to hundreds of early customers, observing their existing email habits and teaching shortcuts. This onboarding approach served simultaneously as user research, problem discovery, and product education.⁠[1]

By the summer of 2017, Superhuman had been in development for about two years, and Vohra was still not confident that the product was ready for a large-scale launch. He adopted the survey method proposed by Sean Ellis, asking users how disappointed they would be if they could no longer use the product, and used the share answering “very disappointed” as the metric. His public retrospective states that the initial share was 22%, rising to 33% after narrowing to a better-suited target user group. These figures are the company’s survey results; the 40% reference threshold comes from Ellis.⁠[9]

Vohra organized the subsequent process into four steps: segmenting target users, analyzing feedback from those who love the product and those who nearly do, building a roadmap that addresses both strengths and gaps, and continually re-measuring. The team strengthened speed and shortcuts while also addressing issues that affected adoption, such as mobile and search. In his retrospective, he reported that after three quarters the “very disappointed” share reached 58%; this result describes Superhuman’s practice and is not a guarantee of success for other companies.⁠[9]

On June 27, 2019, Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry announced that it was leading Superhuman’s Series B, with David Ulevitch joining the board. Its investment announcement positioned the product for professionals who handle large volumes of email and noted the subscription price at the time of $30 per month; speed, keyboard shortcuts, and manual onboarding were the product features it emphasized.⁠[8]

In 2019, Mike Davidson publicly criticized Superhuman’s tracking pixels and location logging, arguing that recipients lacked notice and a way to opt out. On July 3, Vohra responded and apologized, acknowledging that the design had not adequately considered potential bad actors. He announced that Superhuman would stop logging location for new emails, remove and delete historical location data, turn read statuses off by default, and prioritize adding an option to disable remote image loading; a later update to the post said all five changes had been completed. The read status feature itself was retained.⁠[10][11]

Vohra and Todd Goldberg met through a joint investment in Partender and went on to co-invest many times. In an April 2020 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 interview, Goldberg said the two raised their first fund of $7.3 million in about four months, with limited partners drawn mainly from founders and operators. They hoped to combine product experience, networks, and capital to help early-stage companies.⁠[12]

In December 2020, Vohra explained that, in addition to their early-stage fund, the two used an AngelList Rolling Fund to make later-stage investments and follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies. In the division of labor he described, Goldberg focused mainly on running the funds while he ran Superhuman, contributing the experience and connections of an active founder; their investment decisions focused on product demand, distribution potential, and founders’ sustained execution.⁠[2]

On August 4, 2021, Vohra announced that Superhuman had raised $75 million in new funding, led by IVPIVPIVP (Institutional Venture Partners) is a growth-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, founded by Reid W. Dennis in 1980; it has invested in companies including Twitter, Dropbox, Coinbase and Figma.Open the full entry with participation from Tiger Global and several strategic investors. Ajay Vashee, a general partner at IVP and former chief financial officer of Dropbox, joined the board. The announcement listed Outlook, Android, calendar, and enterprise applications among the areas for further investment.⁠[13]

On May 3, 2023, Vohra released Superhuman AI, introducing features such as turning short prompts into emails, adjusting tone and length, revising text, and summarizing long emails. The announcement stated that it was built on ChatGPT and sought to match users’ writing style based on their existing emails. This marked the product’s further expansion from an email efficiency tool into generative writing assistance.⁠[14]

On July 1, 2025, Vohra announced that Superhuman would be acquired by Grammarly, with plans to jointly build an AI-native productivity suite. He recalled meeting Coda co-founder Shishir Mehrotra in 2017 and demonstrating Superhuman for him; the combination aimed to accelerate development in areas such as email, calendar, collaboration, and AI agents. The announcement did not disclose the transaction amount.⁠[15]

On October 29, 2025, Vohra explained that the parent company formerly named Grammarly had been renamed Superhuman, and the original email app was renamed Superhuman Mail, forming a suite with Grammarly, Coda, and Superhuman Go. HumanX’s 2026 agenda subsequently listed Vohra as founder and head of Superhuman Mail and Shishir Mehrotra as chief executive officer of Superhuman. The roles in the email business and in the parent company should be understood separately.⁠[16][17]

On April 29, 2026, Vohra introduced Superhuman Mail MCP, which allows tools such as Claude and ChatGPT to connect to email and calendar to search, draft, schedule, and triage. The announcement said drafts can be reviewed in the email app or edited and sent from the connected assistant. This is a product development opening the email service to external AI workflows.⁠[18]

On September 1, 2026, Vohra announced a redesign of the Superhuman Mail interface for iOS and Android, including a fixed bottom navigation bar, a unified composing experience for new emails and replies, and a clearer distinction between internal comments and outgoing emails. The announcement also listed a rewrite of the email engine, adding external context to auto drafts, and a full voice mode as next steps, which should not be confused with the interface update released at that time.⁠[19]

As of this review, the Todd & Rahul Capital website says it mainly makes pre-seed and seed investments, typically investing $300,000 to $500,000, does not lead rounds, and supports companies through product, go-to-market, and fundraising connections. Its public portfolio includes MercuryMercury (fintech company)Mercury is an American fintech company founded in 2017 by Immad Akhund, Jason Zhang and Max Tagher; it launched account services for businesses in 2019. Its platform combines financial services provided by partner banks with software for bills, invoices and expense management. Mercury itself remains a fintech company; the proposed Mercury Bank, N.A. should be distinguished from the current partner-bank model.Open the full entry, Supabase, ClassDojo, Manifold, Farcaster, and Loyal. The cumulative investment and number of companies listed on the website are self-reported by the fund and are measured differently from the investment count on Vohra’s personal account.⁠[20][21][22]

Superhuman Mail: The email product Vohra co-founded and leads, formerly named Superhuman. Official website: https://superhuman.com/products/mail (opens in a new window).⁠[23][17]

Rapportive: The email plug-in company Vohra co-founded, acquired by LinkedIn in 2012. Official website of the acquiring organization: https://www.linkedin.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

LinkedIn: The acquirer of Rapportive and a company where Vohra worked. Official website: https://www.linkedin.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Todd & Rahul Capital: The investment firm Vohra co-manages with Todd Goldberg. Official website: https://www.toddandrahulcapital.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[21]

Vohra’s public X account is https://x.com/rahulvohra (opens in a new window). He also publishes product articles under his own byline on the official Superhuman blog, with an author page at https://blog.superhuman.com/author/rahul-vohra/ (opens in a new window). These pages are used to verify his public professional activity; accounts of actors or creators with the same name have not been merged into this person.⁠[22][24][21]