Initialized Capital

Initialized Capital is a San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed venture capital firm co-founded in 2011 by Garry Tan, who subsequently became president and CEO of Y Combinator in 2022, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, with a focus on backing exceptional founders at the earliest stages across consumer technology, enterprise software, fintech, and deep technology. The firm has built one of the most successful seed fund track records in Silicon Valley, with a portfolio that includes some of the most consequential companies built in the past fifteen years. Initialized invests with initial checks from $500,000 to $2 million at pre-seed and seed stages. Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange that completed a Nasdaq direct listing in 2021 at a market capitalization of over $85 billion, was an early Initialized portfolio company. Instacart, the grocery delivery and pick-up service that completed a Nasdaq IPO in 2023, was backed by Initialized. Reddit, the social news and content platform co-founded by Alexis Ohanian, completed a NYSE IPO in 2024. OpenSea, the NFT marketplace, and Flexport, the digital freight forwarding platform, are portfolio companies. Beyond its original investments in Coinbase and Instacart, the portfolio includes Reddit, Flexport, OpenSea, Cruise (acquired by GM), and dozens of additional consumer and enterprise technology companies.