Social Leverage Raises $85 Million Fund to Double Down on Seed-Stage Investing
V.C. Investor Matt Ober discusses raising the firm’s fifth fund and investing in San Diego.
Business of San Diego delivers in-depth profiles of founders and insights on San Diego’s most successful companies, executives, and technologies. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss the next story.
Social Leverage — a venture capital firm with a presence in Arizona and San Diego — has raised its fifth seed stage venture fund to continue backing startups at the intersection of technology and financial services.
Social Leverage looks for extraordinary founders building in financial services or vertical AI. It also makes opportunistic investment in consumer and media companies.
The firm has made over 125 investments since inception, the most notable include Robinhood, Kustomer, eToro, Alpaca, among dozens of others.
Managing Partner Matt Ober, who joined the firm in 2022 after working as Chief Data Scientist at the $20 billion-plus hedge fund Third Point in New York, discussed the firm’s most recent fund and its 2026 investment strategy.
Our discussion focused on raising capital from LPs amid a tumultuous fundraising environment, the firm’s largest portfolio wins, and its seed investing strategy.
“Our fundraise came down to building long-term relationships supported by a strong track record,” Ober said. “Many LPs from our previous funds continued to invest in Fund V, and we welcomed new LPs from institutions, wealth managers, family offices, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.”
“Staying disciplined on valuation has allowed us to achieve top-decile DPI in our early funds and will remain a core focus,” said Ober. “We have already invested in five companies through Fund V and are excited to continue backing exceptional founders.”
High-level Overview
Founded in 2009, Social Leverage focuses primarily on seed-stage software companies across financial services and vertical AI. It has invested in more than 125 startups since inception.
The firm’s early investments include notable companies like Robinhood, Alpaca, eToro, Manscaped, Beehiiv and StockTwits, with a strong track record of unicorn startups, companies valued at $1 billion or more, in its portfolio.
The firm’s mission is “to help founders turn their vision into great companies.”
Founding Story
Founded in 2009, Social Leverage is not a traditional venture capital fund.
Launched by Tom Peterson and Howard Lindzon, the duo invested together as angels before going out to raise its first venture fund in 2013.
Lindzon is the public face of the firm and a well-known venture investor and internet personality, with more than 270,000 followers on X.
Lindzon has been everything from a hedge fund manager, an entrepreneur of multiple startups, an angel investor, and a venture capitalist.
“Scale comes from what I call social leverage,” said Lindzon. “Good people, right price, timing, big trends, and you build this massive scale around your network.”
Fund Investments and Portfolio Exits
It typically writes checks between $1 million to $2 million in exchange for between 10% to 20% of a startup, though it varies depending on the specific deal. It will continue to back founders in future rounds as well.
The firm’s biggest portfolio wins include backing Kustomer in 2015, a customer service software that was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion in 2022.
The firm was an early backer of the stock trading app Robinhood, which was valued at over $105 billion. Other past startup exits include Wag!, ChartIQ, DataFox.
“We pride ourselves on being very disciplined on valuation, finding outstanding founders that we can work with that have a long term vision,” said Ober, adding that the firm likes to back founders who are not scared to be non-consensus or “soon to be hot” sectors.”
“Robinhood, Alpaca, Kustomer, Beehiiv are all companies from our earlier funds that have had successful exits or are experiencing exciting growth, that we invested in from the very beginning,” he added. “We continue to focus on the areas where we have expertise and back founders with strong experience.”
Investing in San Diego and Southern California
San Diego is home to other venture capital and angel groups — including Harpoon Ventures, Nufund Venture Group and Correlation Ventures, which all focus on different verticals such as critical tech, life sciences, or hardware-related startups.
Social Leverage’s split of investments has been about 40% in the northeast, 40% in California and the remaining 20% spread across the rest of the US and Canada.
“Social Leverage has a focus primarily on fintech and vertical AI companies, which make up the bulk of our portfolio, so we see fewer local opportunities in San Diego, but we look to meet founders throughout Southern California.”
“Many founders in our earlier funds are both in San Diego and throughout Los Angeles. Overall, we back founders across the U.S. and Canada and continue to see opportunities to build great businesses in cities throughout the country.”
Social Leverage does a stellar job. We're lucky to have them in SD and their Coronado event!