Steve Anderson
Solo GPFounder, Baseline Ventures
Solo seed investor; Instagram's first institutional backer
Background
Steve Anderson founded Baseline Ventures in 2006 after stints at Kleiner Perkins, Microsoft, eBay, and Starbucks, building it as a one-person seed-stage firm. He was Instagram's first investor, holding approximately 12% of the company at the time of its $1 billion acquisition by Facebook in 2012. Baseline has backed over 100 companies with 50+ profitable exits, including Twitter, Heroku (acquired by Salesforce), SoFi, Stitch Fix, TaskRabbit (acquired by IKEA), and Expensify. Anderson was recognized on Fortune's 50 Businesspeople of the Year in 2012 and appeared on the Forbes Midas List from 2012 to 2020. He deliberately operates as a single-partner firm to maintain conviction and give founders more equity than traditional VC deals.
Investment Thesis
Seed-stage conviction investing as a solo GP; focus on founders with strong product intuition and backing companies where $50M-$200M outcomes create meaningful returns.
Investment Focus
Stages
Typical check: $250K–$1M
Sectors
Based in: USA (San Francisco Bay Area) (North America)
