Video: Alfred Lin and Bambi Francisco at Post Seed 2015

Vator, Inc.

Startup/Business

Joined Vator on June 7, 2007

Vator (short for innovator) is an awesome professional network for entrepreneurs and investors that sits at the intersection of media and finance. Our entrepreneurial ecosystem consists of startups, investors, strategics and service providers.

Vator’s platform offers an extensive set of services to the entrepreneurial community.  Here is a quick summary of our suite of offerings:

VatorNews: Research, analysis and coverage, spanning news, thought leadership and lessons learned

VatorX: SaaS platform leveraged by startup communities and competitions to rank and filter participating startups

Vator Events: Well recognized large and small events across numerous geographies and sectors

Vator Investment Club: Our investor group for accredited investor members of the Vator community

Vator Teams: Our confidential acquihire platform for startup teams

Background

Vator was originally founded by Bambi Francisco and seed funded by its original lead investor Peter Thiel as a social network for startups and investors, combining media coverage with rich profiles and filtering. Over the more than decade since its founding Vator has expanded to offer a full range of services to the entrepreneurial community. Today Vator is a well-recognized and trusted member of the startup community.

Business Model

Vator has a range of business models due to its diversified set of offerings.

  

Bullpen Capital

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on May 3, 2007

Bullpen Capital is second round investor who invests in companies previously seeded by the Super Angel funds.

Sequoia Capital

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on January 21, 2014

Sequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972. The Wall Street Journal has called Sequoia Capital “one of the highest-caliber venture firms” and noted that it is “one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture-capital firms”. It invests between $100,000 and $1 million in seed stage, between $1 million and $10 million in early stage, and between $10 million and $100 million in growth stage.

Venture51

Angel group/VC

Joined Vator on April 18, 2011

venture51 is a seed- and early-stage venture fund built for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.  We partner with the best founders who are forming at the earliest stages of the emerging Information Technology market. 

We like to add value by:

• Investing directly in, and/or supporting syndicate deals in, early-stage, high growth, Information Technology startups.
• Growing our startups through active participation and leveraging our professional network and operational expertise (product, marketing & distribution).
• Staying connected to preeminent entrepreneurs and investors to ensure access to the best early-stage people flow, and, just as importantly, making these resources available to our startups when needed.
• Building and bringing together best-in-class resources for product development, user experience design, customer-focused metrics, and online distribution, and fostering partnerships by creating an impressive and diverse network of mentors – whom we refer to as “Agile Advisors.”

 

Bambi Francisco Roizen

Joined Vator on June 28, 2008

Founder and CEO of Vator, a media and research firm for entrepreneurs and investors; Managing Director of Vator Health Fund; Co-Founder of Invent Health; Author and award-winning journalist.

Alfred Lin

Joined Vator on February 12, 2010