Alsop Louie Partners

Alsop Louie Partners is an early-stage, risk-oriented technology venture capital firm founded in 2006 in San Francisco by Stewart Alsop, a journalist-turned-investor, and Gilman Louie, the first CEO of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's strategic venture arm, from 1999 to 2006. Half of the firm's partners have direct experience working for US intelligence agencies, and this background shapes a distinctive investment philosophy the firm calls Venture Humanism: a belief that the most durable technology companies are those designed with accountability, safeguards, and societal awareness built into their architecture. Alsop Louie focuses on early-stage investments across cybersecurity, national security and defense technology, deep tech, digital media, SaaS, robotics, and augmented reality, with initial check sizes from $500,000 to $1.5 million. The firm has made more than 70 investments and recorded more than 20 exits over nearly two decades. Significant portfolio outcomes include Niantic (creator of Pokémon GO), Wickr (encrypted communications, acquired by Amazon Web Services in 2021), Cleversafe (object storage, acquired by IBM), and Twitch (live streaming, acquired by Amazon for approximately $970 million in 2014). Gilman Louie also co-founded DataTribe, a cybersecurity startup studio, and CyberGRX, and serves as co-founder and CEO of America's Frontier Fund, a nonprofit deep-tech investment vehicle focused on US national security. Beyond its original investments in Armada, Dragos, IronNet, and Nuspire, the firm's portfolio includes Niantic, Wickr, Twitch, Cleversafe, Meow Wolf, and NetWitness.