Siqi Chen
About Siqi Chen
Siqi Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Runway, a financial planning and modeling platform for operators and finance teams. Runway's Series A was reported at $27.5 million in 2023. He lives in San Francisco, and his Lounge profile lists him as an active angel investor in AI and software startups.
His first company was a Facebook game called Friends For Sale in 2007, followed by Serious Business, which Zynga acquired in 2010. At Zynga he was Head of Product. He then founded Hey, Inc., which Postmates acquired in 2016. At Postmates he was VP of Product and Growth. Postmates was later acquired by Uber. He was also president, chief product officer and CEO of Sandbox VR, which raised a $68 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz in 2019. He co-founded Runway in 2020.
Earlier in his career he worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on machine vision for the Mars Exploration Rovers. He holds a bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from UC San Diego. He writes about building AI-first companies, including in VentureBeat bylines. His X bio also points to cfo.ai, a project he has posted about publicly.
Crunchbase lists 26 investments for Siqi Chen, with no lead investments and no exits recorded. Crunchbase also shows no companies founded, which is incomplete given the companies above. Other profiles describe a much larger angel book. Mercury's investor database and a 2025 podcast bio say he has invested in nearly a hundred companies. Mercury names Clubhouse, Amplitude, Pipe and Italic. Other bios add Touch of Modern, Mercury and ElevenLabs.
His X bio lists Mercury, Owner, ElevenLabs, Gamma, SF Compute, Turing, Recall.ai and Eight Sleep among investments. The totals differ between databases and the individual investment amounts are not public, so founders should treat the counts as approximate.
Crunchbase counts 21 AI investments since 2023. Its AI portfolio list includes Bezi, Kaedim, Owner, Hyperspell, Sentra, Flux, Series Entertainment, Vocode, OthersideAI, Emergent, CHAI AI and ElevenLabs.
PitchBook also records recent deals with dates. These are Rork (seed round, April 2026), Sentra (January 2026), Ego AI (October 2025), Emergent (September 2025), Monumental Labs (July 2025), TurboLayer (April 2025), Troveo (November 2024) and Wordware (October 2024). Many of these are business software or software development tools. PitchBook's figures differ from Crunchbase's, and neither source gives his check sizes.
The public record shows an angel who invests across AI applications, developer and productivity software, and tools for operators, with some consumer and hardware names. These include Eight Sleep and Series Entertainment. The PitchBook entries above are mostly early-stage companies, many with seed rounds or first revenue. He has not published a thesis or a stated check size that we could verify, so none is given here.
He is based in San Francisco. He runs Runway day to day, which shapes the kind of founders he can advise. His public writing suggests he is interested in finance and operations software and in how companies adopt AI in practice. Founders who want to reach him can use X, where he posts often, or LinkedIn.
- ElevenLabs: AI voice company listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio and named in his X bio.
- Emergent: AI software development company. PitchBook dates the investment to September 2025.
- Sentra: listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio. PitchBook dates the investment to January 2026.
- Kaedim: listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio.
- Owner: listed in his Crunchbase AI portfolio and named in his X bio.
- Wordware: PitchBook dates the investment to October 2024.
- Mercury: banking platform named in his X bio and in Mercury's investor database.
- Amplitude and Clubhouse: earlier angel investments named in his podcast and Mercury bios.
- Vocode, OthersideAI, Bezi, Hyperspell, Flux, Series Entertainment and CHAI AI: other names in his Crunchbase AI portfolio.
- crunchbase.com/person/17d23171-5c9d-ec6e-a7e5-0fd4de232410
- linkedin.com/in/siqic
- x.com/blader
- mercury.com/investor-database/siqi-chen
- pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/224112-43
- delightx.delight-ventures.com/en/advisors/siqi-chen
- startupdadpod.substack.com/p/work-life-balance-is-overrated-siqi-chen-
- venturebeat.com/author/siqi-chen-runway
AI portfolio
Investing activity
Siqi Chen has made 26 investments according to Crunchbase. 21 of those investments since 2023 were in AI companies, including Bezi, Kaedim, Owner, Hyperspell and Sentra.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Siqi Chen
Who is Siqi Chen?
Siqi Chen is a San Francisco founder and angel investor. He is co-founder and CEO of Runway and was previously CEO of Sandbox VR. He also held product and growth roles at Zynga and Postmates.
What AI startups has Siqi Chen invested in?
Crunchbase lists Bezi, Kaedim, Owner, Hyperspell, Sentra, Flux, Series Entertainment, Vocode, OthersideAI, Emergent, CHAI AI and ElevenLabs. PitchBook also lists Ego AI, Wordware, Troveo and Rork.
What is Siqi Chen's check size?
He has not published a check size that we could verify, and the individual amounts are not public. Please do not rely on third-party estimates.
What stage does Siqi Chen invest in?
He has no stated stage. PitchBook lists several of his recent deals as seed rounds or early companies, but he has not published a stage preference.
How can founders contact Siqi Chen?
He posts often on X as @blader and has a LinkedIn profile. No personal website or pitch form is published. Founders should check whether they share a connection or can make a short, specific ask.
Is Siqi Chen an angel investor?
Yes. Siqi Chen invests personally as an angel. Crunchbase counts 26 investments.
What AI companies has Siqi Chen invested in?
Siqi Chen's AI investments include Bezi, Kaedim, Owner, Hyperspell, Sentra, Flux, Series Entertainment and Vocode.
Where is Siqi Chen based?
Siqi Chen is based in San Francisco, United States.
How can founders reach Siqi Chen?
Founders on Lounge can see Siqi Chen's contact details in AI Investor Contacts (paid plans), check for a warm introduction through members who worked with them under Warm Paths, and add Siqi Chen to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.