Aaron Samuels photo
Investor profile

Aaron Samuels

Founder and Managing Partner, Collide Capital

About

Aaron Samuels is a Black Jewish performance poet turned venture capital investor at Collide Capital who co-founded Blavity and created AfroTech before raising a $66M fund backed simultaneously by Amazon, Alphabet, and Twitter. He uses "identity saliency" as an investment lens, focusing on how strongly a founder's lived identity connects to the problem they're solving, while continuing to publish poetry and perform as part of his dual identity bridging artist and entrepreneur roles. Aaron Samuels is a Black Jewish performance poet turned venture capital investor at Collide Capital who co-founded Blavity and created AfroTech before raising a $66M fund backed simultaneously by Amazon, Alphabet, and Twitter. He uses "identity saliency" as an investment lens, focusing on how strongly a founder's lived identity connects to the problem they're solving, while continuing to publish poetry and perform as part of his dual identity bridging artist and entrepreneur roles.

Works at

Investment focus

Stages
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Sectors
FinTech
Logistics
Future Of Work
SaaS
Diversity focus
Under-represented founders

Investment details

Avg check size$250K - $1M
Can lead rounds
No
Geographies
USA
LatAm