Semil Shah
VCFounder & General Partner, Haystack
Seed-stage investor, Forbes Midas List repeat
Background
Semil Shah is the Founding Partner of Haystack, a seed-stage venture firm he started in 2013. Before venture, he held product and operational roles at early-stage startups, with his last startup acquired by Apple. Haystack has backed over 250 companies and produced 16 unicorns including DoorDash, Instacart, Figma, and HashiCorp. Shah has been named to the Forbes Midas List for Seed Investors five consecutive years (2022–2026). He co-invests alongside partners Aashay Sanghvi and Divya Dhulipala.
Investment Thesis
People over sectors — backs unusually high-signal founders regardless of geography or category at seed stage.
Investment Focus
Stages
Typical check: $500K–$3M
Sectors
Based in: United States (primarily) (North America)
Notable Investments
DoorDash
Early seed investment; IPO 2020
Instacart
Early seed investment; IPO 2023
Figma
Early seed investment
HashiCorp
Early investment; acquired by IBM
Applied Intuition
Early investment; autonomous vehicle software
Opendoor
Early seed; NASDAQ: OPEN
Carta
Early seed; equity management platform
Envoy
Early 2013 investment; workplace platform