entrepreneur and early stage investor | founder of Z Fellows @zfellows
San Francisco, CA
Joined March 2007
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"everything around that you call life was made up by people who were no smarter than you" - Steve Jobs
new z fellows cohort starting soon. interviewing now for it.
zfellows.com
Cory Levy retweeted
General Translation has raised $27m led by @martin_casado at @a16z to localize the world’s best companies.
Today, @generaltxn serves Ramp, Cursor, and Sierra by translating apps, sites, docs, slide decks, and even product videos into dozens of languages.
a16z invested alongside @upfrontvc, Peter Thiel, Fei-Fei Li, and more. 🧵
Cory Levy retweeted
Cory invited me to ZFellows, and I had nowhere to stay. Archie had never met me, but let me stay at his house with his team. He must've made a good impression since I left school and moved to SF shortly after. Great guy. Bullish!
General Translation has raised $27m led by @martin_casado at @a16z to localize the world’s best companies.
Today, @generaltxn serves Ramp, Cursor, and Sierra by translating apps, sites, docs, slide decks, and even product videos into dozens of languages.
a16z invested alongside @upfrontvc, Peter Thiel, Fei-Fei Li, and more. 🧵
Cory Levy retweeted
Today, @JudgmentLabs opens for general access.
We believe long running agent systems will generate more exhaust data than the world can currently process.
Hidden within agent traces are rich records of how to make these systems better: what users ask for, when agents stumble, and how agents interact with the external world.
Judgment is the most performant monitoring and improvement layer for long-horizon agents.
We’re excited to see what you build!
!!
in 2022 i put 2 strangers in a group chat. it turned into $1B.
i told cory that ali wasn’t the standard silicon valley type, that he was hungry, and that he’d break $1 million in revenue between his two companies.
cory wrote his first check, and ali has spent 4 years proving him right.
he turned micro1 into a billion dollar/year business with 180 people (all remote btw) and just priced a round at $4 billion.
i do this constantly. if i meet someone and i know who they should know, they’re in a group chat that night. no scheduling, no waiting for the right moment.
keep up the killer work!! @aliansarinik
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Cory Levy retweeted
in 2022 i put 2 strangers in a group chat. it turned into $1B.
i told cory that ali wasn’t the standard silicon valley type, that he was hungry, and that he’d break $1 million in revenue between his two companies.
cory wrote his first check, and ali has spent 4 years proving him right.
he turned micro1 into a billion dollar/year business with 180 people (all remote btw) and just priced a round at $4 billion.
i do this constantly. if i meet someone and i know who they should know, they’re in a group chat that night. no scheduling, no waiting for the right moment.
keep up the killer work!! @aliansarinik
Cory Levy retweeted
Thank you @cultured
Not many people know this but sometimes I miss being a founder. I basically work at the companies I invest in when they need me. At crucial times I’ll even write emails for my founders.
I naturally end up spending more time on companies that excite me and Whop has been exciting me a lot lately.
They just crossed $400M ARR. I went through their top 500 customers one by one and realized that despite what many people think, these are real businesses with sustainable and growing revenues.
I pattern match for a living. I don’t even try to, it’s just how my brain works. One thing I’ve noticed is that the best founders might be a little surprised by their success, but they’re never fazed by it. They just keep raising the bar.
For years @cory and I have been saying @whop could be a $30B company.
But lately I’ve started thinking Whop has a serious shot at $100B . A couple months ago @czoob3 finally said it out loud: “I would double or nothing my stake that Whop will be a $100B company.”
That’s the kind of ambition that breeds greatness.
I don’t particularly enjoy sitting on boards, but for greatness you make exceptions.
This round also welcomes @justinmateen to our board of directors. Justin is a wonderful person and razor sharp investor. He has singlehandedly introduced us to 100s of the highest quality people on the planet. He joins myself, @paoloardoino, @jawedkarim, @czoub3, and a few other institutional investors.
I would like to specifically mention how much we appreciate our other institutional investors – in order of when they invested: @peterthiel @insightpartners, A*, @SignalFire, @BCV, and @tether
More soon.
Onwards 🤘
Cory Levy retweeted
A few months ago, I heard Cameron speak at a Z Fellows event in the Whop office about the vision for Whop.
I was hooked. Honored to now be building alongside the team.
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
Cory Levy retweeted
Congratulations Whop
This is still only the beginning
I love this company and this team so much
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
Cory Levy retweeted
YC rejected Whop in fall 2021 batch, but there was a better program that accepted Whop and that was Z Fellows.
Cory was the first check in Whop, has been by our side through it all, and joined our board when it was formed.
ZF >
looking through my camera roll and realized I have hundreds of photos from the last 5 years with the Whop crew.
different offices, apartments turned offices, and random cities where makeshift offices were found.
funny thing is y'alls Z Fellows acceptance email went to spam. thankfully y’all happened to checked spam 😂. now some Z Fellows founders are building businesses on Whop.
thinking back to our first meeting and everything it took to get here… I don’t think I tell you guys enough how proud I am of you.
best part of all of this is you guys became some of my closest friends.
congrats to the whole team on the raise. love you guys!
Cory Levy retweeted
I waited, learned and made my first investment since returning as an active investor at Sequoia.
Whop is a special company, and I’m excited to help them to create jobs and stimulate the economy.
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
looking through my camera roll and realized I have hundreds of photos from the last 5 years with the Whop crew.
different offices, apartments turned offices, and random cities where makeshift offices were found.
funny thing is y'alls Z Fellows acceptance email went to spam. thankfully y’all happened to checked spam 😂. now some Z Fellows founders are building businesses on Whop.
thinking back to our first meeting and everything it took to get here… I don’t think I tell you guys enough how proud I am of you.
best part of all of this is you guys became some of my closest friends.
congrats to the whole team on the raise. love you guys!
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
Cory Levy retweeted
Our mission is to deliver everyone a sustainable income.
We will not stop until there are billions of people earning on Whop.
Shoutout to everyone who has made this possible, from the earliest sneaker botters to the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs building on Whop today 🫡
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
Cory Levy retweeted
Whop has raised $200M in Series D funding at a $5.1B valuation, backed by @sequoia and @shopify.
It really feels like we are barely touching the tip of the iceberg in a market larger than anyone can imagine.
We first launched Whop as a better way for us to sell sneaker bots, one of the most niche types of desktop software out there.
Total TAM? Probably $20,000 per day.
Who cares, tiny market.
But, what people discounted is the idea that there were actually 70,000 other markets exactly like that one.
Beyond the investment itself, I am especially excited to welcome legendary silicon valley investor @dougleone to our board of directors. Doug and the sequoia team are nothing but a brilliant, resourceful, and principled group of people.
My co-founder Cameron and I started building on Shopify when we were 13 years old. Shopify is one of the most impactful all-in-one cloud ecosystems ever created; @tobi has pioneered modern entrepreneurship the way we know it and we are thrilled to have him in our corner.
We have a tenet at Whop to be the dumbest in the room and I am very grateful that this has recently become a lot easier.
We are focused on markets, scale economies, and progressive media. If that is up your alley, please message me directly.
The $200M raised will support our expansion as we build economic infrastructure for the next century, continuing on our mission of delivering everyone an income.
spent the last week in Milan, Munich, Windsor, and Oxford meeting people in college and high school (Eton)
“talent is everywhere, opportunity isn’t” felt real. the internet opens doors but being surrounded by people who think your crazy idea is worth trying matters more than we admit
Silicon Valley makes taking a risk feel normal. I met so many young people in Europe creating that same energy. but we need more of it and more people willing to back them before it’s obvious. I want to help.
excited to visit more of Europe soon. HMU if ur there.
Cory Levy retweeted
Greptile has raised a $50M Series B led by Menlo Ventures. The round values the company at $750M.
Greptile reviews and tests more than 1% of all PRs opened on GitHub every day. Thousands of engineering teams including Nvidia, Coinbase, Decagon, and Vanta use Greptile as their independent and central validation layer.
Fewer than 50 people, we are a small, talent-dense team of engineers and researchers in a quiet corner of San Francisco. If you’re interested in joining us, we’d love to hear from you.
