Apply for Designer Fund Partnership

Designer Fund Partnership is the best design support and investment offer for early-stage startups. We invest up to $1 million in Pre-seed to Series A companies committed to improving health, prosperity, or sustainability for all people. We help you create a world-class product and brand, hire exceptional design talent, and close more investors. We provide on-demand office hours tailored to what you need most and access to our network of top design leaders across tech.

Our investments range from $100K to $1M and we can adjust terms based on your stage, traction, and funding history. We ask for pro rata and information rights because inevitably you'll face increasing design challenges as your company grows that we can help you overcome. It’s important to us that our interests are aligned long-term so we can continue to help scale your design team and org.

These are some of the key traits we look for in an investment:

• Early stage startups, Pre-seed to Series A
• Mission driven founders who have technical, design, and business domain expertise
• Companies aligned with our impact goals of health, prosperity, and sustainability
• Products that are 10x better than existing alternatives
• Multi-billion dollar markets with poor user experiences
• Primarily US-based companies, although we're happy to make exceptions

We’re aiming to invest in companies that are inherently good for the world and align with our desired impact outcomes:

• Health: Increase wellbeing by preventing disease and improving the cost and delivery of care.
• Prosperity: Create pathways, tools, and infrastructure to give more people access to economic growth.
• Sustainability: Replace legacy and harmful products with more efficient and renewable solutions.

We're excited to invest in companies that are looking to use great design to challenge existing health and wellness paradigms. This includes companies building new digital therapeutics, improving key healthcare infrastructure, updating care to be more accessible, preventative, and personalized like Ro. Our companies including August Health (a new operating system for long-term care facilities), Omada Health (building digital therapeutics), and Heartbeat Health ( telemedicine for cardiologists) are all examples of companies improving the cost, delivery, and systems for greater wellbeing.

In addition, we're excited about transferring the best of traditional tech software as a service and applying those lessons to our climate challenges. There are many opportunities for software to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and accelerate our renewable energy transition like our portfolio company Lumen Energy (helping building owners save money with clean energy). Everything from financial services to carbon accounting to electrifying appliances needs to be easier with products like Kopperfield. In addition, we need new alternatives for nearly every product that's still rooted in petroleum and unsustainable supply chains, from food to building materials. There is also a fundamental shift that we must make towards a circular economy that recognizes we are on a planet with limited natural resources for humans to exploit (example: our portfolio company Zero Acre Farms. Another area that design can have an outsized impact is related to increasing awareness, behavior change, and demand for green products among all consumers and commercial buyers, not just wealthy or niche communities who can afford them.

Also, we're excited to use design to help create new economic opportunities for people of all backgrounds and socioeconomic classes. This includes themes like preparing people to transition to modern forms of knowledge work like Formation. We also expect to see more non-traditional ways for people to generate income by monetizing their creativity on platforms such as Podia. In addition, we're looking for products that help level the playing field for SMBs to compete with big incumbents. For example, our portfolio company Stripe helps anyone easily set up a business and accept money online. Another portfolio company, Gusto, relieves SMBs of their back office overhead with modern payroll, benefits, and HR.

We encourage you to apply early as we evaluate companies on a rolling basis. Founders who apply earlier typically receive a faster response and have more time to get to know us.

If you miss the deadline, we recommend getting a referral from an investor or a member of our community using this form. Please also note your preferred timing in your application if it doesn't align with our process.

No, we welcome traction and signals of product-market fit. We’re happy to co-invest with other investors. As collaborative, value-add specialists, we complement lead investors, seed funds and angels. We have the flexibility to invest before, during or after a round of funding with other investors. We can invest in both priced rounds and SAFE notes.

Apply by October 4, 2024 at 11:59pm PT. We typically respond to companies selected for an intro call within two weeks and make final investment decisions within two months. We're not a startup factory. We take a boutique approach and only invest in 8-10 companies a year so that we can partner closely with founders.

We generally prefer startups with mission-driven founders who have complementary skills across business, engineering, and design. Having a designer on your team is preferred but not required; however, a commitment to design strategically is essential.

No, we offer expert design guidance when you need it instead of a fixed program. We're happy to co-invest with accelerators and incubators. While we prefer to meet in person at least once in the first year, it's not required. Most sessions can be done remotely or in major U.S. cities.

We aim to increase access to funding and design resources by enabling any founder to apply for a partnership with us.

Through Designer Fund Partnership, founders receive:

• Investment of up to $1 million with flexible ownership terms
• Guidance on creating a world-class product and brand
• Help hiring and managing exceptional design talent
• Fundraising support to close more investors
• Access to our network of top design leaders across tech

Both of our General Partners will work directly with your team. We also aim to match you with design experts from our network who will provide additional support and work as an angel investor and/or advisor to your company. We typically meet with founders more frequently in the first year of investment, but you can reach out to us anytime and request support as needed.

• Design angels: In addition to the Designer Fund team, we collaborate with select top angels who have operating experience at companies like Figma, Notion, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snap and Dropbox. If there's a potential match, we’ll share your application and invite them to invest in your company alongside us or independently, giving you the chance to add more investors who value design to your cap table.
• Design advisors: We have a roster of design experts across domains and help match you with them for ad hoc questions, ongoing support, or formal advisory roles.

Unlike consultants, we’re investors and partners with equity in your business, so our interests are aligned long-term. We’re complementary to design freelancers and studios who are often great for specific expertise that may be needed at various stages of the company. We maintain relationships with curated freelancers and studios that we can recommend, and help manage those relationships to effectively get the best work from them.