Why this matters to me.
Bindr started as a personal need: a dating app where nobody had to pick a label to belong. It grew into a community that now reaches millions of people, it was named by Forbes as a top LGBTQ+ dating app, and it was selected as a TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 company. It also got laughed at in rooms full of investors, because a queer product is still a hard thing to raise for.
Winning the first-ever 2SLGBTQIA+ Entrepreneur Prize at Startupfest in Montréal changed that for us. It brought investors who understood what we were building, and it is the reason I now spend part of my time on the other side of the table. There should be more people writing checks who have actually built for this community.
Queer founders do not need a different playbook. They need someone who has already run it.
What I look for.
Community products with a real mechanism
Dating, social, community and consumer products built for LGBTQIA+ people, where the founders can explain exactly how the first thousand users arrived. Bindr taught me that a community product lives or dies on the first session, and I want to see yours.
Queer founders building anything
The company does not have to be a queer product. A B2B tool, a marketplace, a consumer brand or a local business from an LGBTQIA+ founder is exactly the kind of company most angels never see, and exactly the kind I want to.
Builders with traction
Early stage, working product, real users, honest numbers. I write angel checks and I stay involved on growth, which is usually where a queer-founded company needs the most help and gets the least.
The full list of what I look forUnited States and Canada.
Central Pennsylvania is home, and I cover the local markets around York, Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in person. For LGBTQIA+ founders the map is bigger. Startupfest in Montréal is where Bindr found some of its best supporters, Canada’s 2SLGBTQIA+ startup community has been generous to us from the start, and I back founders on both sides of the border.
If you are a queer founder in Toronto, Vancouver, Montréal, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta or anywhere in between, the conversation starts the same way.
Pitch me on LinkedInQuestions LGBTQIA+ founders ask.
Do you invest in LGBTQIA+ founders outside Pennsylvania?
Yes. For LGBTQIA+ founders I invest across the United States and Canada. Central Pennsylvania is home, but Bindr’s community was never limited to one state and neither is this.
Does the company have to be an LGBTQIA+ product?
No. I back LGBTQIA+ founders building anything. Queer-focused products are close to my experience with Bindr, but a queer founder building B2B software, a marketplace or a consumer brand is exactly who I want to hear from.
What stage do you invest at?
Early. Angel checks into companies with a working product and real users. I would rather see a rough product that a hundred people use every week than a polished deck for something that does not exist yet.
What do you bring besides money?
Growth. I co-founded ColdStart to solve the cold-start problem for products that need users, and I have put companies on the TechCrunch stage, in Forbes and in front of pitch juries in Montréal. LGBTQIA+ founders often have to work twice as hard for the same attention. I know how to get it.