Soma Capital is a fund built by founders, for founders. Soma invests in brilliant teams who are “starving” to solve huge problems, push civilization forward and improve the human condition.
Soma is founded by Aneel Ranadive, who has over 10 years experience building and investing in startups. Aneel is often the earliest if not very first money in with a focus on software in consumer and enterprise. Aneel has seeded the likes of Cruise, Rappi, Embarktrucks, Astranis, Lambda School, Ironclad, Atrium, Razorpay, Alto Pharmacy, and Lendup among others. Soma Capital portfolio companies have a combined valuation of over $20bn, with over $6bn in follow on capital invested after Soma’s initial seed checks.
Aneel works with his father Vivek Ranadive, founder of Tibco Software which sold for $4.3bn to Vista. Tibco originally digitized Wall Street and powers 80% of Fortune 500 companies including many of the largest banks, airlines, retailers, hotels, casinos, and government services. Soma Capital has a deep rolodex of CEO-level relationships with some of the biggest brands in the world and makes strategic introductions for portfolio companies. Ranadive also owns the Sacramento Kings NBA team providing many influencer relationships in sports, media and entertainment. In addition to connections with athletes through the NBA network, the top artists in the world perform at Ranadive’s “Golden 1” arena from Lady Gaga to Ariana Grande, Jay Z, Travis Scott, Paul McCartney etc.
Soma Capital’s anchor investor is Bow Capital. Soma invests seed stage, then Bow Capital can invest Series A and beyond. Soma and Bow are backed by the UC endowment, which is the largest school endowment in the world ($120bn) and gives Soma Capital access to UC labs, professors, research facilities and over 22k graduating engineers per year to help portfolio co’s with hiring. Bow Capital gives Soma many resources to win seed deals and add value along the full trajectory from seed to growth stage.
Soma Capital is seeking to hire an investment analyst to both help manage the existing portfolio, and also identify later stage follow-on investment opportunities from the portfolio.