South Park Commons - Investor
South Park Commons
When we invest, companies don't just receive capital and typical resources from a fund—they also become part of the South Park Commons community
SPC has the highest density of talented technologists in the -1 to 0 phase, with 450+ members from 150 different academic and professional networks The community's depth of talent offers a unique source of domain expertise and feedback Members regularly join companies in the SPC network
"Over 50% of our founders have met a cofounder or early hire through the SPC community"
You will find your earliest believers in the SPC community There are 100+ companies in the community that can become design partners during the validation phase and first customers when it's time
Vlad Novakovski CEO of Lunchclub, Series A - A16Z, Coatue, Lightspeed "We received our first alpha testers and early adopters from the SPC Community and without it we would have moved a lot more slowly” We go to bat when it comes to fundraising Our team will help craft the story required to raise a successful round We'll be the first money in and kick off warm introductions to the best funds Our early-stage portfolio has gone on to raise over $1B from other top venture funds
Ben Brook CEO of Transcend Series A - Accel, Index "When we raised our seed, the SPC Fund introduced us to all the top investors and helped us close a $4M seed led by Accel"
We've helped 450+ members navigate the -1 to 0 phase and know the common pitfalls Our Founder Fellowship program supports a small group of pre-idea founders with a $400K investment and ideation curriculum to help them validate venture-scale ideas
We've invested in 90+ companies to date, including more than five unicorns We think of ourselves as another co-founder, bringing our company-building expertise plus the resources of the community to help in any way we can
We partner with 1-2 breakout companies each year at the growth stage (typically Series C/D) to lend our operational experience and help them scale their engineering organizations
Ruchi Sanghvi is the founding member of the SPC Community She was the first female executive at Dropbox and served as their Vice President of Operations She was responsible for product, marketing, communications, recruiting and other functions She came to Dropbox through its acquisition of Cove, a company she founded in 2011 Prior to that Ruchi was the first female engineer at Facebook, and was instrumental in implementing the first versions of key features like News Feed, Facebook Platform, Facebook Connect and Privacy Ruchi has also served as a director on the board of Paytm, India’s largest mobile payments platform, and is currently on the board of UCSF
Prior to SPC Ruchi was an active angel investor in 50+ companies including Gusto, Pinterest, Paytm, Brex, Figma and Stemcentrx Ruchi holds a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University
Aditya Agarwal is a Partner with the SPC Fund He was the CTO and VP of Engineering at Dropbox where he scaled the engineering team from 25 to 1000 Before Dropbox, Aditya co-founded Cove—a company that was building modern collaboration software Prior to Cove, Aditya was one of Facebook’s first engineers He helped build the first versions of key products like Search, NewsFeed and Messenger He then became Facebook’s first director of Product Engineering, overseeing engineering for products like NewsFeed, Profile, Groups and Events
Aditya served on the boards of FlipKart—India’s leading e-commerce company, Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, and the Anita Borg Institute He is also an active investor and advisor to Silicon Valley startups In his spare time, Aditya likes to listen to techno music, read, travel and most of all, hang out with his two children Aditya holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University
Mitra is a Partner with the SPC Fund She joined SPC from Nava Public Benefit Corporation, the software company responsible for the improved healthcare gov insurance marketplace At Nava, Mitra spearheaded business development efforts and won contracts also to build new VA benefit appeals and Medicare incentive payments systems Prior to Nava, she led revenue analytics and international expansion efforts at Dropbox Mitra began her career at Bain as a management consultant and is on the board of LeanMarket She graduated from MIT
Finn is a Partner with the SPC Fund and a co-head of the SPC Community He previously spent two years as Chief of Staff for SPC Fund Partner Ruchi Sanghvi Before coming to SPC, he was a rower with the US National Team Prior to that, he earned his master's degree at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge and his bachelor's degree in Economics from Brown University In his spare time, he enjoys being outdoors (biking, skiing or anything else), reading economics papers, and playing with new consumer apps
Temina is a co-head of the SPC community She joined SPC from machine learning startup Atlas AI, where she led business development Earlier she co-founded and led the Center for Effective Global Action, a think tank based at UC Berkeley focused on human and economic development She began her career in science and technology policy, working first in the US Senate and later at the National Institutes of Health Temina is on the professional faculty at UC Berkeley, where she teaches a graduate course on economic development and engineering, and she is the co-founder of the Agency Fund She holds a bachelor's degree from MIT and PhD from UC Berkeley
Bala is Chief of Staff for the Fund He came to SPC from Uber, where he was a Product Manager and Engineer on their Payments team Prior to that he worked at Facebook on their Dev Infra team He's most proud of Cognitive Exchange, a nonprofit he started in 2013 aimed at teaching speech and debate skills to high schoolers in India, Uganda, Ghana, Guyana, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone He is an avid reader of classics, lifelong basketball fan, and runner He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jonathan is SPC's Storytelling Partner, helping members, companies, and the community craft and tell compelling narratives He previously worked in campaign politics, advertising, and as an independent writer and filmmaker When he's not typing away at his computer you can find him on a hiking trail or trying to find a new bakery Jonathan graduated from the University of Southern California with bachelor’s degrees in Film Production and Political Science
