Mike Maples Jr.

Co-Founding Partner, Floodgate

Pioneer seed investor backing Thunder Lizard startups

Palo Alto, CA$500K–$5M checks8 notable investments

Pre-SeedSeed

Website LinkedIn 𝕏@m2jr Floodgate Crunchbase

Enterprise SaaSConsumerAIDeveloper ToolsInfrastructure

Background

Mike Maples Jr. is a co-founding partner at Floodgate, one of the earliest dedicated seed funds, which he established in 2004. Before becoming a full-time investor, he was an operating executive at two startup IPOs: Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM) and Motive (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent). He has appeared on the Forbes Midas List eight times and coined the concept of "Thunder Lizards" to describe rare, disruptive breakout companies. He authored the national bestseller Pattern Breakers and hosts a corresponding podcast on startup strategy. He was also a visiting partner at Y Combinator for its Spring 2026 batch.

Investment Thesis

Identifies "Thunder Lizard" companies early — startups that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations — by investing before market consensus forms at the pre-seed and seed stages.