Nabeel Hyatt
General Partner at Spark Capital
Nabeel Hyatt
General Partner at Spark Capital
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
General Partner
2014 - Current
Spark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm. We invest in phenomenal products we love and the creative humans behind them. We do things a little differently and aren't afraid of risk. Spark-backed companies include Twitter, Discord, Anthropic, Cruise, Niantic, Oculus, Warby Parker, and tumblr. I joined in 2012, founded the west coast office, and have led early investments and/or sit on the board of Discord, Postmates (acquired by Uber), Sonder (IPO), Cruise (acquired by GM), Adept AI, Capella Space, Descript, Instawork, Zum, AllStripes, Sonera, Standard Metrics, Wild Type, Particle, Harmonix (acquired by Epic Games), Proletariat (acquired by Activision), and North (acquired by Google). My primary drive is being in service to founders on the search for new markets. There are plenty of investors focused on implementing playbooks, I study what it takes for truly risky, new, interesting things to create new markets. I tend to look for products in which the underlying technology or systems can be extremely complex, but are presented as a simple, magical experience to the people who use them. That rare mix of design and technology.
Venture Partner
2012 - 2014
Am I really sure I want to be a VC?
Board Observer
2016
We led a round into Discord a few months after the product launched, when they had a few thousand users.
Board Member
2016
We led the Series A into Sonder, at the time it was called Flatbook and operating just in Montreal. $2.2b IPO in 2022.
Board Member
2014 - 2020
We invested when Postmates was ~10 employees and I served on the board for six years. Acquired by Uber that closed at $5b in 2020, awful lot happened in between.
Board Member
2015 - 2016
We led the Series A a few weeks after their first private demo of a fully autonomous driving system. Acquired by GM for over $1b, then spun back out, now valued over $30b.
GM
2010 - 2012
Early stage through IPO. Headed up a studio, built and launched Indiana Jones' Adventure World, which Kutaku called "an actually fun social game", the highest ARPU Zynga title that year, and reached over 60m users.
Founder, CEO
2007 - 2010
Founding through exit. Early OG social gaming company. Building live, synchronous, music social spaces and games. Acquired by Zynga.
Co-Founder, VP Product
2001 - 2005
Co-founded. A spin-out from the MIT Media Lab, we built a consumer hardware startup that sold "internet information" devices everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art to Best Buy to Radioshack. Well loved products, but ultimately never broke through to the mainstream. Named as one of the Ideas of the Year in NY Times Magazine, 2003.
COO, VP Product
1999 - 2001
Early through exit / IPO. Online sports media rollup (today you would call it a blog network). Started as soccerspot, rolled-up into internetsoccer, rolled into IPO as Teamtalk plc in 2001, then acquired by bSkyb in 2007. Teamtalk was the most trafficked sports site in the UK and much of western europe, and managed content for FIFA, MLS, and other leagues. Oversaw product and operations.