Naval Ravikant
About Naval Ravikant
Naval Ravikant was born in New Delhi in 1974 and studied at Dartmouth College. He is an entrepreneur and investor who is based in Palo Alto, California. His website is nav.al.
His first company was Epinions, a consumer product review site he co-founded in 1999. It went public as part of Shopping.com. He later co-founded and ran Vast.com. Earlier bios also list Genoa Corp, which was acquired by Finisar, and Hive7 among his companies.
He co-founded AngelList in 2010 as a platform that connects startups with angel investors. It grew out of the Venture Hacks blog. He is its co-founder and chairman and previously served as CEO. Crunchbase also credits him with co-founding CoinList, a platform for token sales. In 2017 he started Spearhead, a fund that helps founders invest as angels.
Ravikant invests personally and has done so for well over a decade. Biographies published around 2017 describe more than 100 investments. They name Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Postmates, Wish, Thumbtack, Stack Overflow and OpenDNS among them. More recent profiles also list Notion, Opendoor, Clubhouse and SnapLogic.
Several of these companies have since exited. Dealroom records Uber's IPO in 2019, Wish's IPO in 2020, Postmates' acquisition in 2020 and Stack Overflow's acquisition in 2021. Third-party databases disagree on his total deal count and exit count, so this page does not give a single figure. Crunchbase lists him with no lead investments, which is consistent with a personal, participating angel style rather than a lead role.
He has said publicly that he is not a billionaire, and he has pushed back on inflated net worth estimates.
Crunchbase counts 17 AI investments by Ravikant since 2023. Its AI portfolio list includes MicroFactory, Extropic AI, Reasoner, Nomic, Infringements, Generalist AI, Chaos Labs, Perplexity, Quill Meetings, Liquid AI, Chroma and Invalidate.
Crunchbase's activity timeline shows rounds in Perplexity, Extropic AI and Liquid AI between 2023 and early 2024. It lists him as an investor in Liquid AI's seed round and in Perplexity's Series B. Extropic, founded in 2022 to build energy-efficient computing hardware, names him among its investors and advisors on its own site. Other trackers also list Replit, Descript, Hebbia and Deepnote in his AI portfolio. These come from a social media post, not a primary source.
Ravikant invests at the early stage, mostly as an individual angel. Database profiles describe him as backing seed and Series A companies. His portfolio is concentrated in the United States, with smaller numbers of companies in Canada, India and the UK, according to Dealroom. Third-party profiles tag his sectors as including AI, SaaS, fintech and crypto. Recent AI deals range from models (Liquid AI) and search (Perplexity) to vector databases (Chroma) and hardware (Extropic).
He has not published a check size or investment thesis. Third-party estimates vary widely. CB Insights describes older checks of $50K to $500K, and other sites show much wider ranges. Treat these as unverified.
In public talks and interviews he has described a power-law approach in which most bets fail and a few return the portfolio. Secondary write-ups summarize the traits he screens for as founder quality, clear thinking, founder-market fit and the ability to attract strong people. These are paraphrases of his public commentary, not a formal pitch guide.
- Perplexity: AI-powered search and answer engine. Crunchbase lists him as an investor in its Series B, announced in early 2024.
- Liquid AI: foundation model company. He is listed as an investor in its seed round.
- Extropic AI: builds energy-efficient computing hardware for AI. Founded in 2022, and it lists him as an investor and advisor.
- Nomic: AI tooling company, listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio.
- Chroma: open-source vector database for AI applications, listed in his AI portfolio.
- Uber: ride-hailing company. An early investment that reached IPO in 2019.
- Twitter: social network and one of his best-known early investments.
- Notion: workspace software company, listed among his investments by multiple profiles.
- Postmates: delivery company acquired in 2020.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Ravikant
- crunchbase.com/person/naval-ravikant
- crunchbase.com/person/naval-ravikant/person_overview_investor/timeline
- crunchbase.com/funding_round/liquid-ai-seed--55381c5e
- crunchbase.com/funding_round/perplexity-ai-series-b--5cd2dca1
- extropic.ai/about
- dealroom.co/investors/naval-ravikant
- cbinsights.com/investor/naval-ravikant
AI portfolio
Investing activity
Naval Ravikant has made 50 investments according to Crunchbase. 17 of those investments since 2023 were in AI companies, including MicroFactory, Extropic AI, Reasoner, Nomic and Infringements.
Naval Ravikant appears in 1 AI deal tracked by the Lounge deals desk. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $7M. The most recent is Quill (Seed, $6.5M, Feb 2026).
Naval Ravikant most often invests alongside Basis Set Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, 500 Emerging Europe (500 Global) and Morado Ventures, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Naval Ravikant
Does Naval Ravikant invest in AI startups?
Yes. Crunchbase counts 17 AI investments since 2023, including Perplexity, Liquid AI, Extropic AI, Nomic and Chroma.
What is Naval Ravikant's check size?
He has not published one. Third-party databases give conflicting estimates, such as $50K to $500K from CB Insights, so founders should not rely on them.
What stage does Naval Ravikant invest in?
He backs early-stage companies, mostly seed and Series A according to database profiles. His Crunchbase profile shows no lead investments, so he usually participates in rounds that others lead.
What companies did Naval Ravikant found?
He co-founded Epinions in 1999, Vast.com, and AngelList in 2010. Crunchbase also credits him with CoinList.
How can founders contact Naval Ravikant?
He has a public presence on X and a personal site at nav.al, and his LinkedIn profile is linked here. He has not published a pitch process, so a warm introduction from someone in his network is the usual route.
Is Naval Ravikant an angel investor?
Yes. Naval Ravikant invests personally as an angel. Crunchbase counts 50 investments.
What AI companies has Naval Ravikant invested in?
Naval Ravikant's AI investments include MicroFactory, Extropic AI, Reasoner, Nomic, Infringements, Generalist AI, Chaos Labs and Perplexity. The 1 round on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Where is Naval Ravikant based?
Naval Ravikant is based in Palo Alto, United States.
What stage does Naval Ravikant invest at?
In the rounds tracked on Lounge, Naval Ravikant has invested at Seed, with a median round of $7M.
Who does Naval Ravikant co-invest with?
Naval Ravikant's most frequent co-investors on Lounge are Basis Set Ventures (1 deal), AME Cloud Ventures (1 deal), 500 Emerging Europe (500 Global) (1 deal) and Morado Ventures (1 deal).