Jake Zeller
Snapshot
Founder of Powerset (San Francisco, since Sep 2022) — the platform that hands elite technical founders their own $1M+ fund to angel-invest. Based in the SF Bay Area. The one-liner: a product-builder of investing infrastructure turned founder — he industrialized “founders backing founders,” first inside AngelList/Spearhead, now as his own firm. Our POC for the Powerset raise.
Background
- Powerset — Founder (Sep 2022 – present). Started it with long-time collaborator Jonathan Swanson to scale the “founders backing founders” thesis. (See Powerset for the model.)
- AngelList — Partner / Advisor (Partner since ~Apr 2015; still listed as Advisor). Launched and led AngelList’s online-venture-funds product — the rails behind solo-GP / “rolling fund” formation. Per his Milken bio, the product “supports billions of AUM and drives a meaningful portion of all solo-GP formation in the United States.” He has described AngelList’s mission as “democratizing access to LP capital.” Also a board member of AngelList India (since ~Jul 2017).
- Spearhead — Partner (~Jan 2018 – Aug 2022). Spearhead was the AngelList × Accomplice joint venture giving founders capital to angel-invest — the direct inspiration for and predecessor of Powerset. Jake was in it “from the program’s inception.”
- JJK — Early-stage investor (since ~Aug 2015). His personal/joint investing vehicle with Jonathan Swanson; together they’ve backed Mercury, Scale AI, Talkdesk, and 100+ more.
- Education: Stanford University, B.S. Physics (“graduated with distinction”).
Investing
- Thesis (the core belief): the best early-stage investors are other founders. “Oftentimes it’s the best founders who are building the best companies and are going to make for the best investors.” “I’ve never found a genius-level technical founder who’s building an incredible company who just sucks at investment.” (TechCrunch, Jan 2025) He explicitly distrusts founders who want to become full-time VCs (“Those people are going to perform terribly”) — conviction comes from people deep in building, not people looking for an exit ramp.
- Track record as an angel: early investor in numerous $1B+ companies including Mercury and Talkdesk (Milken bio); via JJK also Scale AI and 100+ others. Listed in Mercury’s investor database.
- Style: infrastructure/platform mindset — he’d rather build the machine that deploys capital through many great founders than personally pick every deal. At Powerset there is no IC and no veto — he designed the firm to remove gatekeeping.
- Geographic reach: spoke at the Milken Institute Middle East & Africa Summit 2023, signaling interest beyond the US (consistent with his AngelList-India board role and Powerset’s global cohort).
Public voice (what he’s actually said)
- TechCrunch — “Powerset gives founders $1 million to invest in other startups” (Margaux MacColl, 2025-01-14). The canonical Powerset profile. Key quotes:
- “What if the best investors aren’t venture capitalists but other founders, scribbling off checks in between late-night coding sessions and board meetings?”
- On who fails: “He’s not interested in anyone who views Powerset as an off-ramp to running a company… ‘Those people are going to perform terribly.‘”
- “If you’re building something that’s hugely important, and your life mission and your life work, you’re not going to invest in some marginal company. It doesn’t justify the activation energy.”
- Axios — “Powerset joins the ranks of programs that turn founders into investors” (Kia Kokalitcheva, 2022-10-04). The launch exclusive. Quotes:
- “I’m specifically looking for the [entrepreneurs] who are like, ‘I’m too busy for this, I don’t have time for this.‘”
- “Our thesis is that we’re going to see a lot more of [these programs]… a movement of founders backing founders.”
- Milken Institute — speaker bio (Middle East & Africa Summit, 2023). Frames Powerset as “a seed-stage venture capital firm [that] leverages a distributed approach, tapping a network of top technical founders to build a high-quality seed portfolio at scale.”
- FactorDaily “Outliers” podcast #60 — “How AngelList works” (2018-06-21, audio). Jake explains syndicates / AngelList mechanics: “I think we are democratizing access to LP capital. We’re gonna raise all the money in the world and we are gonna allocate according to meritocracy.” (His clearest articulation of the AngelList worldview that underpins Powerset.)
- Writing / social: posts the firm’s cohort announcements via LinkedIn (
/in/jake-zeller-79923454) — e.g. the Cohort 3 launch post (2025-01-14) with the aggregate track-record stats. No public Substack/blog found. X/Twitter handle not confirmed from available sources (^[single-source]/COULDN’T-GET — see report).
Personal & interests (rapport)
- Stanford physics background — leans analytical/first-principles; the “decentralized fund / no IC” design reflects a systems-builder’s instinct.
- Long-running partnership with Jonathan Swanson — they’ve invested together since ~2015 (JJK) and co-founded Powerset; clearly values durable, high-trust collaborator relationships. (Swanson is a self-described “relentless optimist” / trail-runner-biker; the two share an optimist, build-for-the-long-term temperament.)
- Genuinely cares about founder commitment — the recurring theme across every interview is respect for people whose company is their “life’s work.” ^[inferred from his stated selection criteria]
- (No public hobbies/causes surfaced beyond the above; deepen over time.
^[needs-research])
Fundraise Relationship (init.inc)
- Relationship facts: Jake is the routing layer into Powerset’s cohort-founder capital — not a traditional fund check, but the gateway to Powerset’s technical cohort founders and their networks. Sebastian (Powerset) raised LatAm-GTM questions in the meeting, which is why the follow-up went to Isaiah (init cofounder, GTM).
- Conversation log (newest first):
- 2026-05-12, 7:47 PM — Sazzad iMessaged Jake looping in Isaiah to go deeper on the Powerset playbook + LatAm pieces; next conversation handed to Isaiah.
- 2026-05-11, 3:30–4:30 PM — In-person meeting with Sazzad at The Battery (717 Battery St, SF); “interesting.” Sebastian (Powerset) raised LatAm-GTM questions.
- Intro via TJ.
- Mutual connections / warm path: TJ (intro source). Powerset-side: → Sebastian (LatAm-GTM).
- Personal & rapport notes: He respects founders who’d never treat investing as a side-hustle off-ramp; his selection filter for investors is mission and long-horizon commitment. The LatAm go-to-market plan is the thread for the Isaiah follow-up.
- Live stage: Follow-Up Phase — tracked in the CRM.
Cross-check vs existing wiki
- TJ lists “Jake Zeller (Powerset) — Follow Up Phase” — consistent. No contradictions vs existing vault content; no competitor cap-table overlap found.