Team
We are people committed to the Pacific Northwest. Of the community and for the community.
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Chris DeVore
Managing Partner
Chris DeVore is the Founding Managing Partner of Founders’ Co-op, the Pacific Northwest's leading seed-stage venture fund. In that role, Chris led the seed rounds for Seattle's most recent successful IPO Remitly (NASDAQ:RELY) and $4B+ Outreach, was an early backer of Auth0 (acquired by Okta for $6.5B), and led or participated in the first round financings of over 100 additional startups in the region. Chris also co-founded and led the Seattle branch of the global Techstars startup accelerator from 2010 to 2019, supporting an additional 100+ founding teams from inception through their first fundraise. Previously a co-founder of Adjacency (acquired by NASDAQ: SAPE), Chris also created outdoor retailer Patagonia's first online retailing channel and led product and business strategy teams at AT&T and McCaw Cellular. As a community volunteer, Chris co-chaired the City of Seattle’s Economic Development Commission, partnered with the University of Washington to create Startup Hall (a commercial innovation space located on the UW Campus), and is a current Board member of Friends of Waterfront Seattle, a non-profit helping to revitalize Seattle’s downtown waterfront. Chris holds a BA from Yale and attended the MBA program at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
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Aviel Ginzburg
General Partner
Aviel Ginzburg is a General Partner at Founders' Co-op and former Managing Director of the Alexa Accelerator, powered by Techstars, which was backed by Amazon's Alexa Fund. In 2010 Aviel co-founded Simply Measured, one of Founders' Co-op's first investments and was later backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Trinity Ventures, and MHS capital. When Simply Measured sold to Sprout Social at the end of 2017, Aviel transitioned from his role as Venture Partner into a full time General Partner. Aviel got his start as one of the first software engineers at Appature (acquired by IMS Health), which was also backed by Founders' Co-op in 2009. Though a new addition to the partnership, Aviel knows the Founders' Co-op ecosystem well, and has played every role from portfolio founder, to company employee, to partner over a 10 year period. Aviel holds a BS from Vanderbilt University.