Frequently Asked Questions

We're straightforward and always open to sharing what we've learned—so that you get the answers you need.

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Timing
Decision-Making Process
Investment Process
Terms
Immigration
Working With Us
Basics
What is your investment process and how long does it take?
We are conviction-driven, selective, and diligent investors. This means our process is thoughtful. We value founders’ time, conduct research between meetings, and maintain transparency on where we are. The duration of the process truly depends on how fast we can get to a strong conviction either to invest or pass. If we conclude that we are not a fit for an investment, we communicate it quickly and with honest feedback. If an investment would make mutual sense, we make an offer and work with the founders to close the investment most efficiently. You can learn more about our process here.
Where is Unshackled's office?
Our office is located in Sunnyvale, CA.
How involved will Unshackled be with my company?
Our level of involvement is as much as the team requests. We know founders' time is valuable, and we trust our founders will request our support when needed. We support our founders actively in fundraising, hiring, and strategic planning for their next key milestones, both in product and business. Most importantly, we are comfortable and willing to be wartime investors. In other words, we commit more time to portfolio companies when things are not going well, and have found that our time to be more effective than our dollars at those times.
Are we too early for Unshackled?
This is unlikely, as nothing is too early for us. Most of the companies we have invested in had nothing more than an idea and a team. We aren’t afraid of leading with conviction and betting on people as they figure things out. Once you have the conviction in the problem or opportunity, don’t wait to reach out to us - if you wait, it might be too late for us.
Does Unshackled invest in any particular areas or industries?
We are sector agnostic. We like to see the world from the entrepreneurs’ eyes and follow your vision on the largest opportunities. Like most VCs, we look to invest in companies that can grow at “venture scale” in large market opportunities. This includes tech (software and hardware), life sciences, and materials.
What is the round size Unshackled will participate in?
We prefer to lead Pre-Seed rounds in capital-efficient founders. These rounds are typically under $1M (occasionally larger in specific verticals). This is usually the capital needed to test critical assumptions and hypotheses, and prepare the company for a larger seed round. We have seen this work out to the founder’s advantage to minimize dilution, stay focused, and build a habit of frugality. Companies can opportunistically raise additional capital over time (at different valuation caps) as the business progresses, before raising a formal Seed round.
Is it true that Unshackled provides complete immigration support to founders on visas?
Yes. We are the only VC with immigration attorneys as partners. We take care of everything immigration and employment for our portfolio founders, including visas and green cards. The exact solution varies for each individual, and our team work for portfolio founders to make sure immigration doesn’t slow them down, while maintaining complete compliance with U.S. immigration laws. Immigration is personal to us since we started Unshackled with our experiences building companies while on a visa. We understand the critical role immigration plays in people’s lives, and are here to make it as less painful as it can be. The objective is to allow you to innovate and build what you want to build - whether that means you do that as our employee or of your own startup. We have made over 230 immigration filings across 13 different categories of work-authorization to ensure immigrants can start a company while on a visa, with a 100% success rate. Our immigration team also stays constantly engaged with portfolio founders throughout the journey, as your life and work situation changes.
We have raised some money from angels - is it too late?
Nope. If you are fortunate enough to have friends, family or people you’ve come to know that want to back you, that’s wonderful. This isn’t a problem for us - about 40% of the companies we funded had capital from other sources. We love when other investors are equally excited by what you are doing.
What factors contribute to your decision-making process?
We invest in exceptional people, seriously. At the time of most of our investments, the only thing that exists is a founding team determined to solve a need and build their vision. It’s normal for us to invest before there is a product or customer/sales metrics. We look for teams with unique insights and hypotheses about the problems they are trying to solve, teams that have an understanding of market inflection points, and think strategically about how to prove willingness to pay and customer pain points in a capital efficient way.
Does Unshackled provide support to a green card or permanent residency?
Yes, as part of our immigration support, we help the founding team secure their green card without legal cost. We have done this through various pathways, including extraordinary petitions like the EB-1. Our team works with portfolio founders to identify the fastest paths to visa independence, evaluate eligibility in different ways, and guide what needs to be done to become eligible if there are gaps in eligibility.
Who are the decision makers at Unshackled?
Our entire is involved in the investment process and information gathering. We don’t have a title-driven process, and every investment team member has a significant voice throughout the investment process. Given our different strengths and relationships, this ensures the entire team supports the team in their early company building.
How much does Unshackled typically invest in a new Company?
Typically our first check at the pre-seed stage is between $300K-$500K, but we’ve gone higher or lower in some cases. As companies scale, we may raise subsequent vehicles to support their growth.
Is Unshackled hiring for any roles right now?
You can check Unshackled's current openings here, plus our portfolio jobs here.
Do you guys help with fundraising?
Yes. We work hard to build a strong ecosystem of founders, angels, VCs, and advisors who spend time with our founders when they reach key milestones and are ready to fundraise. Our teams have raised over $700M post our investment. We provide a variety of resources available to help you along the way. From pitch deck creation, founder-to-founder advice, and constant feedback from industry experts, we give you the time.
How do I get in touch with Unshackled?
The easiest way to get in touch with our team is to fill out this form. It takes less than 5 minutes, and we see everything that comes through. We guarantee you will receive a response after the team has reviewed the info. This process ensures that no one individual on our team is a bottleneck in getting back to you. We try our best to make ourselves approachable and reachable via cold emails (thoughtful cold emails are effective), LinkedIn requests, and at the events we are attending or speaking at. Talking to entrepreneurs is the best part of our day, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
Do you help with finding key hires?
We think we can be valuable in a lot of ways here, but have noticed the biggest values are in sharing hiring opportunities with our networks and using our experiences to help close critical hires at your business. As previous executives at a high-profile tech company (backed by a16z, First Round, Floodgate, etc.), the team at Unshackled has a strong network of talent in a variety of industries that trust their judgement and deal sourcing. This has been meaningful in identifying key hires and advisors that help immigrant founded companies succeed faster.
How many companies will you invest in in a year?
We work closely with our portfolio companies and ask them to consider us an extension of their team even in the toughest parts of the journey. For this reason, with a small team, high conviction, and a hands-on approach, we selectively invest in 15-18 companies a year.
We have a product, customers, and/or revenue - is Unshackled a fit?
If you are still in the process of ideation and customer validation (regardless of product or revenue), we would love to hear from you. We love helping teams identify the biggest market opportunity & customers willing to pay for your solution. If you have moved beyond this stage and have multiple customers willing to pay you, it’s likely you are beyond our stage of investing. You can read more about what we invest in here.
Does Unshackled work with any specific countries of birth?
We welcome all immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. to reach out to us, irrespective of where their journey started. Our portfolio founders were born in 30+ countries (across the 6 inhabited continents). Our portfolio truly respects the global diversity of ethnicities and cultures.
What does Unshackled look for in an idea?
Big markets follow big problems. We look for bold ideas, not incremental improvements to the status quo. We understand this is a long journey and many things will change so there must be something foundationally new in the idea, approach, or technology.
Who are Unshackled's limited partners/investors?
Our fund is backed by some of the most influential institutional investors & families in the country. Our limited partners are a core part of our work and a great resource to access networks. Many of our limited partners are also active investors in our companies directly.
We have heard that you need a product and traction before pitching to VCs. What do we need before we meet Unshackled?
Every investor has their sweet spot of investing. We prefer investing when you are getting started, without waiting for a product or customers. If you are a kickass team, have unique perspectives on the problem or opportunity, have done some customer discovery or other research to understand the ecosystem you are going into, and you are convinced that you are working on a big opportunity, we would love to meet you.
Do I need to be in the U.S. to work with Unshackled?
Our current focus is to work with founders who are already in the U.S. Occasionally, we partner with founders who may be outside the U.S. but are in the process of moving here.
Does Unshackled have ownership requirements?
We are conviction-driven investors, and, therefore, like to start with meaningful ownership. We like to own enough of the company to ensure we can dedicate meaningful time and resources to helping you build. We typically target 8-12% ownership, and we work with founders to structure the round in a way that is best for the company (for example, making room for investors that founders really want in the round).
What makes Unshackled different?
We have started companies as immigrants and built a venture fund for immigrants. We try to be the best source of friends and family capital immigrant founded teams can have. We also are the only fund (that we know of) that provides full immigration support for our founding teams. As part of our investment, our team will help secure work-authorization all the way to your green card, at no extra time or financial cost to portfolio founders. This is because we have brought on an immigration partner into our General Partnership. Additionally, our thesis is founded on identifying people with greatest upside. We put in the effort to discover the talent outside of systemic biases & immigration limitations and provide them with a stable platform to unleash their full potential.
What do you look for in founding teams?
We look for teams of individuals that are aware of and confident in their superpowers. Great teams are also self-aware on their blind spots and areas where they will need to fill gaps.
Does Unshackled only lead investments?
We are happy to work with other funds and investors to help immigrants succeed faster. That said we are also very comfortable leading and have led in 75%+ of our investments. Most importantly, we are comfortable in investing in the best entrepreneurs before others reach their own conviction.
Does Unshackled take board seats?
No, we do not require or ask for a board seat. We believe our relationship with our founders is more valuable at this stage than a formal board relationship. That said, we have accepted board seats at the request of portfolio founders.
What does it cost to work with Unshackled?
Immigration is part of our core values and a part of our investment. We will never provide immigration services for a cash fee. Immigration support is a way for us to make our portfolio more valuable and support great entrepreneurs, by solving a major time-sink in the early days of a company.
What if the company needs to pivot?
You won’t be the first one. Zigs & zags on business model, pivots on industry focus or product, are common. We are very used to this and bet on people that aren’t afraid of learning and iterating. Our role is to provide our perspective, if asked, and if the founders decide to change course, be supportive and resourceful to make the adjustment as less painful as possible.
Do you invest in companies outside of Silicon Valley? Outside of the U.S.?
We invest throughout the U.S. In addition to Silicon Valley, we have portfolio companies based in Brooklyn, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta and Toronto, with team members in Denver, Texas, Florida, Hong Kong, Quebec City, and Kenya. We are based in Silicon Valley, New York and Florida and can bring those resources (access to capital, talent, customers) to our portfolio companies wherever they are based. It's very common for us to invest outside Silicon Valley, but less common for us to make investments in businesses whose customers are outside of the U.S.
Does Unshackled invest with SAFEs, Convertible Notes, or priced rounds?
Our goal is to make the investment documentation as simple as possible and we prefer to use a Standard SAFE (post-money) document with a side letter for our investment. We aren’t interested in going back and forth with attorneys, especially at this stage.That said, we have made investments with SAFEs, Convertible Notes, priced rounds and some things in between. We believe it is important for founders and investors to understand the nuances of the various investment instruments. This allows us to be helpful to our founders as subsequent rounds come together with downstream investors. Our experience from raising money for companies we worked at before and for Unshackled’s portfolio provides us critical knowledge to help founder’s understand cap table dynamics as they raise more money.
Do I get to interact with other immigrant founders and get their insights?
Of course! This is a significant part of our community element, with all team members supporting our Head of Community & Culture. We have an active Slack channel, host events regularly, and set up a founder series to enable organic relationships and knowledge flow.
I have never lived or studied in the U.S., but I want to move to start a company, can Unshackled help?
Yes, we’d love to learn more. As you may have read, we are on a mission to create 100,000 American jobs. If we believe our involvement in your company helps us achieve that, we would love to get to know you.
Does Unshackled invest more in an existing company as they grow?
Depends. As companies scale, we may reserve capital or raise additional investment vehicles to support them as they grow from the initial check. Our decision to follow-on our investment is at the discretion of the partners and is based on our experience and relationship working together up to that point.
We have a product, customers, and/or revenue - is Unshackled a fit?
If you are still in the process of ideation and customer validation (regardless of product or revenue), we would love to hear from you. We love helping teams identify the biggest market opportunity & customers willing to pay for your solution. If you have moved beyond this stage and have multiple customers willing to pay you, it’s likely you are beyond our stage of investing. You can read more about what we invest in here.
We have raised some money from angels - is it too late?
Nope. If you are fortunate enough to have friends, family or people you’ve come to know that want to back you, that’s wonderful. This isn’t a problem for us - about 40% of the companies we funded had capital from other sources. We love when other investors are equally excited by what you are doing.
We have heard that you need a product and traction before pitching to VCs. What do we need before we meet Unshackled?
Every investor has their sweet spot of investing. We prefer investing when you are getting started, without waiting for a product or customers. If you are a kickass team, have unique perspectives on the problem or opportunity, have done some customer discovery or other research to understand the ecosystem you are going into, and you are convinced that you are working on a big opportunity, we would love to meet you.
Are we too early for Unshackled?
This is unlikely, as nothing is too early for us. Most of the companies we have invested in had nothing more than an idea and a team. We aren’t afraid of leading with conviction and betting on people as they figure things out. Once you have the conviction in the problem or opportunity, don’t wait to reach out to us - if you wait, it might be too late for us.
Do you invest in companies outside of Silicon Valley? Outside of the U.S.?
We invest throughout the U.S. In addition to Silicon Valley, we have portfolio companies based in Brooklyn, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta and Toronto, with team members in Denver, Texas, Florida, Hong Kong, Quebec City, and Kenya. We are based in Silicon Valley, New York and Florida and can bring those resources (access to capital, talent, customers) to our portfolio companies wherever they are based. It's very common for us to invest outside Silicon Valley, but less common for us to make investments in businesses whose customers are outside of the U.S.
What if the company needs to pivot?
You won’t be the first one. Zigs & zags on business model, pivots on industry focus or product, are common. We are very used to this and bet on people that aren’t afraid of learning and iterating. Our role is to provide our perspective, if asked, and if the founders decide to change course, be supportive and resourceful to make the adjustment as less painful as possible.
What do you look for in founding teams?
We look for teams of individuals that are aware of and confident in their superpowers. Great teams are also self-aware on their blind spots and areas where they will need to fill gaps.
What does Unshackled look for in an idea?
Big markets follow big problems. We look for bold ideas, not incremental improvements to the status quo. We understand this is a long journey and many things will change so there must be something foundationally new in the idea, approach, or technology.
What factors contribute to your decision-making process?
We invest in exceptional people, seriously. At the time of most of our investments, the only thing that exists is a founding team determined to solve a need and build their vision. It’s normal for us to invest before there is a product or customer/sales metrics. We look for teams with unique insights and hypotheses about the problems they are trying to solve, teams that have an understanding of market inflection points, and think strategically about how to prove willingness to pay and customer pain points in a capital efficient way.
Does Unshackled invest in any particular areas or industries?
We are sector agnostic. We like to see the world from the entrepreneurs’ eyes and follow your vision on the largest opportunities. Like most VCs, we look to invest in companies that can grow at “venture scale” in large market opportunities. This includes tech (software and hardware), life sciences, and materials.
How do I get in touch with Unshackled?
The easiest way to get in touch with our team is to fill out this form. It takes less than 5 minutes, and we see everything that comes through. We guarantee you will receive a response after the team has reviewed the info. This process ensures that no one individual on our team is a bottleneck in getting back to you. We try our best to make ourselves approachable and reachable via cold emails (thoughtful cold emails are effective), LinkedIn requests, and at the events we are attending or speaking at. Talking to entrepreneurs is the best part of our day, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
Who are the decision makers at Unshackled?
Our entire is involved in the investment process and information gathering. We don’t have a title-driven process, and every investment team member has a significant voice throughout the investment process. Given our different strengths and relationships, this ensures the entire team supports the team in their early company building.
What is your investment process and how long does it take?
We are conviction-driven, selective, and diligent investors. This means our process is thoughtful. We value founders’ time, conduct research between meetings, and maintain transparency on where we are. The duration of the process truly depends on how fast we can get to a strong conviction either to invest or pass. If we conclude that we are not a fit for an investment, we communicate it quickly and with honest feedback. If an investment would make mutual sense, we make an offer and work with the founders to close the investment most efficiently. You can learn more about our process here.
Does Unshackled invest with SAFEs, Convertible Notes, or priced rounds?
Our goal is to make the investment documentation as simple as possible and we prefer to use a Standard SAFE (post-money) document with a side letter for our investment. We aren’t interested in going back and forth with attorneys, especially at this stage.That said, we have made investments with SAFEs, Convertible Notes, priced rounds and some things in between. We believe it is important for founders and investors to understand the nuances of the various investment instruments. This allows us to be helpful to our founders as subsequent rounds come together with downstream investors. Our experience from raising money for companies we worked at before and for Unshackled’s portfolio provides us critical knowledge to help founder’s understand cap table dynamics as they raise more money.
Does Unshackled only lead investments?
We are happy to work with other funds and investors to help immigrants succeed faster. That said we are also very comfortable leading and have led in 75%+ of our investments. Most importantly, we are comfortable in investing in the best entrepreneurs before others reach their own conviction.
Does Unshackled have ownership requirements?
We are conviction-driven investors, and, therefore, like to start with meaningful ownership. We like to own enough of the company to ensure we can dedicate meaningful time and resources to helping you build. We typically target 8-12% ownership, and we work with founders to structure the round in a way that is best for the company (for example, making room for investors that founders really want in the round).
How many companies will you invest in in a year?
We work closely with our portfolio companies and ask them to consider us an extension of their team even in the toughest parts of the journey. For this reason, with a small team, high conviction, and a hands-on approach, we selectively invest in 15-18 companies a year.
How much does Unshackled typically invest in a new Company?
Typically our first check at the pre-seed stage is between $300K-$500K, but we’ve gone higher or lower in some cases. As companies scale, we may raise subsequent vehicles to support their growth.
What is the round size Unshackled will participate in?
We prefer to lead Pre-Seed rounds in capital-efficient founders. These rounds are typically under $1M (occasionally larger in specific verticals). This is usually the capital needed to test critical assumptions and hypotheses, and prepare the company for a larger seed round. We have seen this work out to the founder’s advantage to minimize dilution, stay focused, and build a habit of frugality. Companies can opportunistically raise additional capital over time (at different valuation caps) as the business progresses, before raising a formal Seed round.
I have never lived or studied in the U.S., but I want to move to start a company, can Unshackled help?
Yes, we’d love to learn more. As you may have read, we are on a mission to create 100,000 American jobs. If we believe our involvement in your company helps us achieve that, we would love to get to know you.
What does it cost to work with Unshackled?
Immigration is part of our core values and a part of our investment. We will never provide immigration services for a cash fee. Immigration support is a way for us to make our portfolio more valuable and support great entrepreneurs, by solving a major time-sink in the early days of a company.
Do I need to be in the U.S. to work with Unshackled?
Our current focus is to work with founders who are already in the U.S. Occasionally, we partner with founders who may be outside the U.S. but are in the process of moving here.
Does Unshackled work with any specific countries of birth?
We welcome all immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. to reach out to us, irrespective of where their journey started. Our portfolio founders were born in 30+ countries (across the 6 inhabited continents). Our portfolio truly respects the global diversity of ethnicities and cultures.
Does Unshackled provide support to a green card or permanent residency?
Yes, as part of our immigration support, we help the founding team secure their green card without legal cost. We have done this through various pathways, including extraordinary petitions like the EB-1. Our team works with portfolio founders to identify the fastest paths to visa independence, evaluate eligibility in different ways, and guide what needs to be done to become eligible if there are gaps in eligibility.
Is it true that Unshackled provides complete immigration support to founders on visas?
Yes. We are the only VC with immigration attorneys as partners. We take care of everything immigration and employment for our portfolio founders, including visas and green cards. The exact solution varies for each individual, and our team work for portfolio founders to make sure immigration doesn’t slow them down, while maintaining complete compliance with U.S. immigration laws. Immigration is personal to us since we started Unshackled with our experiences building companies while on a visa. We understand the critical role immigration plays in people’s lives, and are here to make it as less painful as it can be. The objective is to allow you to innovate and build what you want to build - whether that means you do that as our employee or of your own startup. We have made over 230 immigration filings across 13 different categories of work-authorization to ensure immigrants can start a company while on a visa, with a 100% success rate. Our immigration team also stays constantly engaged with portfolio founders throughout the journey, as your life and work situation changes.
Does Unshackled invest more in an existing company as they grow?
Depends. As companies scale, we may reserve capital or raise additional investment vehicles to support them as they grow from the initial check. Our decision to follow-on our investment is at the discretion of the partners and is based on our experience and relationship working together up to that point.
Do I get to interact with other immigrant founders and get their insights?
Of course! This is a significant part of our community element, with all team members supporting our Head of Community & Culture. We have an active Slack channel, host events regularly, and set up a founder series to enable organic relationships and knowledge flow.
Does Unshackled take board seats?
No, we do not require or ask for a board seat. We believe our relationship with our founders is more valuable at this stage than a formal board relationship. That said, we have accepted board seats at the request of portfolio founders.
What makes Unshackled different?
We have started companies as immigrants and built a venture fund for immigrants. We try to be the best source of friends and family capital immigrant founded teams can have. We also are the only fund (that we know of) that provides full immigration support for our founding teams. As part of our investment, our team will help secure work-authorization all the way to your green card, at no extra time or financial cost to portfolio founders. This is because we have brought on an immigration partner into our General Partnership. Additionally, our thesis is founded on identifying people with greatest upside. We put in the effort to discover the talent outside of systemic biases & immigration limitations and provide them with a stable platform to unleash their full potential.
Do you help with finding key hires?
We think we can be valuable in a lot of ways here, but have noticed the biggest values are in sharing hiring opportunities with our networks and using our experiences to help close critical hires at your business. As previous executives at a high-profile tech company (backed by a16z, First Round, Floodgate, etc.), the team at Unshackled has a strong network of talent in a variety of industries that trust their judgement and deal sourcing. This has been meaningful in identifying key hires and advisors that help immigrant founded companies succeed faster.
Do you guys help with fundraising?
Yes. We work hard to build a strong ecosystem of founders, angels, VCs, and advisors who spend time with our founders when they reach key milestones and are ready to fundraise. Our teams have raised over $700M post our investment. We provide a variety of resources available to help you along the way. From pitch deck creation, founder-to-founder advice, and constant feedback from industry experts, we give you the time.
How involved will Unshackled be with my company?
Our level of involvement is as much as the team requests. We know founders' time is valuable, and we trust our founders will request our support when needed. We support our founders actively in fundraising, hiring, and strategic planning for their next key milestones, both in product and business. Most importantly, we are comfortable and willing to be wartime investors. In other words, we commit more time to portfolio companies when things are not going well, and have found that our time to be more effective than our dollars at those times.
Who are Unshackled's limited partners/investors?
Our fund is backed by some of the most influential institutional investors & families in the country. Our limited partners are a core part of our work and a great resource to access networks. Many of our limited partners are also active investors in our companies directly.
Is Unshackled hiring for any roles right now?
You can check Unshackled's current openings here, plus our portfolio jobs here.
Where is Unshackled's office?
Our office is located in Sunnyvale, CA.
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We provide the 'friends and family' capital immigrant teams often need. We sponsor visas, provide full immigration support, and a community of resources. We remove obstacles and help immigrant entrepreneurs succeed faster.

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