With the challenging economic environment, funding to early-stage companies in Massachusetts and nationwide has shrunk in 2023.
But there are investors out there with capital to fund startups. The Business Journal counted 17 VC firms active in the tech space that raised fresh funds since the beginning of the year. These firms are either based in Greater Boston or have a strong Boston presence.
Individual investors are also still deploying capital, especially at the earliest funding stages.
BostInno has put together a list of some of the Massachusetts investors who have made the most angel, seed and pre-seed investments so far in 2023 with data provided by Crunchbase.
Meet some of the state’s top individual investors this year:
Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO at HubSpot
Shah topped the list with seven investments so far in 2023. The HubSpot founder has made 69 total investments, according to Crunchbase data, with 25 exits among his portfolio.
This year, Shah’s investments include Boston-based Metaplane. The company’s platform helps data teams know when things break, what went wrong and how to fix it. Shah has also invested in Reflect, T2, Peerlist, Entre, Vellum and Bluebirds.
Jonathan Milner, founder of Abcam
Milner is the founder of Abcam, a producer and marketer of protein research tools. He largely invests in early-stage life sciences companies, according to his Crunchbase profile. His four investments this year are in Mogrify, Pencil Biosciences, PharmEnable and SolasCure.
A group of Massachusetts-based investors, including David Chang, Giuseppe Stuto, Jennifer Lum, David Pham, Jonathan Corbin and William Koffel all invested in four startups this year, according to Crunchbase data: Infringements, Patented.ai, LLM Shield and Invalidate.
Steve Kaufer, co-founder of TripAdvisor
Kaufer started TripAdvisor in 2000 and went on to serve as president and CEO. He stepped down from his role at the company in 2022. This year Kaufer has personally invested in Cruisebound, a travel agency that aims to simplify the cruise booking process, and Acelab, a platform that connects architects and manufacturers.
Elliot Cohen, co-founder of PillPack
During his time at PillPack, Cohen served as chief technology officer and chief product officer. He left PillPack four years after it was bought by Amazon. In 2023 Cohen invested in Elaborate, the developer of a lab results application, and Commons Clinic, a multi-specialty clinic offering minimally-invasive surgical and musculoskeletal care.
Stephen Pagliuca, managing partner and co-owner of the Boston Celtics
In addition to co-owning the Boston Celtics, Pagliuca is a senior advisor at Bain Capital. His personal investments this year have been in Releaf, a Y Combinator-backed supply chain technology firm that sources ingredients for African food factories, and Lula, an insurance services provider.
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