Founder & General Partner at Haystack · Joined 2013
View Live Interactive Profile →Semil Shah spent years in product and operational roles at early-stage startups - the most recent acquired by Apple - while building an audience through frequent writing about startups and venture capital that eventually drew in the early investors and LPs who helped fund his first bets. He founded Haystack in 2013 as one of the original solo general partners, a structure he adopted partly because he didn't fit the mold traditional venture firms were looking for at the time. Within Haystack's first six months, Shah invested in DoorDash's $2.5 million seed round - one of the earliest bets the firm ever made, and one that would grow into a company worth tens of billions of dollars by the time it went public in 2020. He has also backed Instacart, Figma, and HashiCorp - all of which either went public or were acquired for billions - and was named to the Forbes Midas Seed List in 2022, 2023, and 2024.