Announcing the Inaugural Also Capital Summer Scout Program

Actively deploying first-check capital into ambitious founders solving hard engineering problems

A few weeks ago I posted an intern position on LinkedIn and Twitter. The response blew me away (~200K impressions on LinkedIn alone…).  Venture is an apprenticeship business, and I know the way I learned it is through the generosity of others willing to teach me and through putting real capital at risk backing founders at the earliest stages. After several weeks reviewing over 700 applications and interviewing <1% of candidates, we’re giving four incredible individuals the opportunity to do just that.

Introducing the “Also Capital Summer Scout Program”

Our inaugural Also Capital Summer Scout Program affords ambitious individuals the opportunity to invest $20-25K checks in early-stage startups over a 12-week period. 

Our investment targets are:

• Company has not raised outside capital (or their current round is the first outside round)

• Investment is in a category where Also Capital is focused

• The opportunity has the potential to be venture scale

All investors will be located in person with me in our SoHo NYC office and manage a pool of capital as if it were its own fund and learn how to spot exceptional talent early from me, our Venture Partners, and broader founder network. 

Investors are primarily responsible for deal sourcing, diligence, pipeline management, portfolio construction, memo writing, investment committee presentations, and “LP” reporting, with close mentorship directly from me and the extended team.  All investors on the team are compensated with a cash stipend for the summer, and all carry on the investment pool is allocated to the partners.   

I couldn’t be more excited to work closely with this incredible group of individuals. Please meet the inaugural partners, and of course reach out to them directly to chat about what you’re building!

Elana Golub, Managing Partner

Elana Golub is currently pursuing an MBA at MIT Sloan. Alongside school, she is a Managing Partner at Dorm Room Fund and an industrials analyst for Brass Rat, a $100K long/short fund managed by MIT students. Elana's professional background as a startup operator most recently includes running operations at a seed-stage startup. Prior, she joined series C fintech Public.com as the first business and operations hire, where she built the company's B2B partnerships business. She holds a dual degree in journalism and economics from Northwestern University.

Sai Mattapalli, Partner

Sai Mattapalli co-founded a brain health startup at 16 and has been working on it since. At Vytal, he and his team leverage gaze tracking to calculate ocular biometrics like saccadic latency that can be interpreted as a quantitative proxy for cognitive health. To date, Vytal has raised $1.3M with a seed round valuation of $12.5M. Prior to founding Vytal, Sai worked on business growth at Quantbase (YC W23) and was involved with an engineering group building a humanoid robot with a dynamically stable gait and human-like limb capabilities. An opportunity to explore what it's like on the other side of the founder-VC table, Sai looks forward to working with the Also Capital team to source and invest in hard tech founders who refuse to shy away from difficult engineering problems.

Maxim Ivanov, Partner

Maxim Ivanov is a sophomore at Stanford University, pursuing a degree in Computer Science with a focus on artificial intelligence. He currently serves as the Vice President of Alumni Engagement for BASES, one of the largest startup clubs on campus.  With three years of experience as a motivational speaker, Maxim has delivered inspiring talks for dozens of corporate and non-profit clients, including the World Bank, HP, VMware, Bosch, TEDx, and Zentiva.

At the age of 16, Maxim became the youngest person to row across any ocean, successfully crossing the Atlantic with his father during hurricane season in a vessel they built in their garage. During and after this journey, Maxim became the face of Yes! To Life!, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing organ transplants in Bulgaria, which has the lowest rate of organ donations in the EU.

Maxim's crossing and charity work were recognized nation wide, as he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and was honored with Bulgaria's Man of the Year award, a prestigious accolade historically given to just one individual annually.

Sebastian Frankel, Partner

Sebastian is an undergraduate at Columbia studying Economics & Political Science with a concentration in East Asian studies. He spent his junior year at Oxford University studying Philosophy, Politics, & Economics. He previously worked as an off-cycle analyst at the alternative asset manager Azura Partners, a line cook at Gramercy Tavern, and as an associate at climate finance firm Flowcarbon. In his spare time, Sebastian enjoys rowing, skiing, poker, and reading

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