Tim Draper

Draper Associates (@DraperVC) company just replicated every YC startup in the latest batch using agentic founders. Incredible.

“Having all my crypto assets at @Coinbase simplifies my life.” - @TimDraper Why did Tim Draper choose Coinbase Wealth? ‣ Best-in-class security ‣ One simple interface for all digital assets ‣ @brian_armstrong's industry leadership

Hollywood came to Draper University in 2015 to film a reality TV show called "Startup U." Fast forward to 2021: PrettyLitter sold—nearly a unicorn. Let’s rewind… One of the contestants was Carly Martinetti. She came with her partner, Daniel Rotman, to pitch PrettyLitter. The concept was that the litter would change color depending on the cat's health. Carly and Daniel placed third in the business plan competition. We made a small investment from Draper Associates to help get them started. The return from PrettyLitter helped pay for more than 10 years of operations at Draper University. Here's what makes this investment special: Draper University can run for many years, training more founders, and building more campuses because of the return on that investment. Urine tests on pets had never been done before PrettyLitter. The impact of PrettyLitter will both save cats' lives and serve as a model for future human urine tests. A relatively new investment Draper Associates made is in Vivoo, a self-applied urine test kit may have had its inspiration from PrettyLitter’s success. What crazy idea are you building? I want to know about it.

If you are building a Bitcoin company and coming to the @TheBitcoinConf don't miss a chance to pitch to @TimDraper for a shot at winning a $1m investment! Apply now to @meetthedrapers : meetthedrapers.com/apply

BlackRock CEO said, “There are a number of sovereign funds that are buying” their Bitcoin ETF incrementally. “You own it over years. This is not a trade.”

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 President Trump says the US will be the undisputed Bitcoin and crypto "superpower" of the world.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 President Trump says "Bitcoin is very powerful." "So many people now want to pay you in crypto."

Very exciting time for #bitcoin as it makes its way into the financial mainstream. Can retail be far behind?

This is so awesome. @JohnSchloendorn and Alice Gilman at R3 Bio talk through what they’re doing at R3 Bio: building something that's never existed before. They're designing genetically engineered whole organ systems. See them featured in WIRED. @WIRED full story here: wired.com/story/a-billio…

Welcome @stevewoz, @JoeMontana, and @thefriley to the Investor Council of @America250 ! I am so excited for them to join @RosieRios @andytangvc and me to review submissions from the next generation of American entrepreneurs. apply here. Deadline 3/31/26 america250.org/americas-start…

BitGo is bringing the High Roller Summit back to Las Vegas for bitcoin2026. Few people have bet bigger or earlier on bitcoin, which is why we're honored to announce @timdraper as our opening keynote speaker. In 2014, Tim outbid 44 competitors at a US Marshals auction to buy 30,000 BTC seized from Silk Road. Learn more about the Summit: bitgo.com/events/high-ro…

I got to know Jim Guzy on the football field. My school, Hillview Elementary, was playing against Fremont Elementary in flag football. They had this kid who was crazy fast on the field. That was Jim Guzy. Later, he became an electrical engineer and innovator. Jim and his brilliant friend, Wei-Ti Liu, came to me with a business to design semiconductors that provided a bus interface between the memory, the processor, and the peripherals of the computer. I told them I would invest if Jim's father, Jim Guzy Sr., would match my investment. Jim Sr. was the founder of Memorex and was on the board of Intel at the time. He matched. Then, together, we all recruited Mike Salameh, a recent Harvard MBA graduate, to become CEO of the business. PLX Technology was founded in 1986 by Wei-Ti Liu, Jim Guzy, and Mike Salameh. Today, every computer, server, consumer electronics product, game console, automobile, and IoT device has multiple bus interface devices. A cell phone alone has about 20 bus interfaces from a camera serial interface to a USB interface to a display interface. There are maybe as many as 100 billion bus interfaces in the world today. PLX went on to have a successful IPO and fifteen years later was acquired by Broadcom. Fast in football, brilliant in business. Jim Guzy was the real deal.

THIS.... College students don't procrastinate! deadline 3/31/26. $20K award for each of the 10 winners. one page biz plan or a one-minute video pitch. @America250 @RosieRios @AndyTANGvc @DraperVC @draper_u

Sam Liang came to the DFJ offices in Menlo Park from China with broken English and a strong spirit. He told us he was creating a business that allowed phones to tag people as they moved around the world and would periodically leave "breadcrumbs" to keep track of them. I backed him. His company, Alohar, sold successfully. Then he came back in 2016 with an idea that sounded crazy. Record and make all the conversations in the world searchable. Most people walked away citing privacy concerns or doubting we could compete with the tech giants. I immediately resonated with the vision. Backed him before anything was built. We at Draper were the very first business to use the product at every meeting. I strongly recommended Otter to everyone I met. Every conversation can now be recorded and transcribed. All of that information stored can be accessed by AI. People and businesses benefit, but all history will be able to be discovered from all points of view. Sam's contrarian mindset, visionary outlook, and unconditional support have been a constant source of inspiration. I like to back creative founders. After they win once, I like to back them on their next voyage.

Jake DeWitte called me with an idea that most people thought was crazy. He wanted to build small fission nuclear power plants. For more than 40 years, the mantra “no nukes” permeated the zeitgeist, and half the people protesting were protesting nuclear war. Jake said he could build a portable nuclear power plant. That could power a small city, be placed anywhere, and even transported. My nuclear physicist friend told me the timeline: "Five years to design. Five years for approval. Five more to build" 15 years. Minimum. I invested anyway. I had faith in Jake that if anyone could get a nuclear power plant built in the US, Jake could. Jake had the energy and drive to actually pull this off. Most entrepreneurs would've given up after hearing that timeline. He doubled down. Fast forward to today: Oklo became the first nuclear power company to get US approval in 40 years. Jake took the company public via SPAC. The Aurora reactor (their flagship model) is a 1.5-megawatt beast that runs for years without refueling. Uses spent nuclear fuel. Cuts waste and environmental impact. Perfect for remote areas and small grids. Oklo today is worth more than $10 billion. Nuclear energy can reduce the carbon emissions damaging Earth. Oklo will be the company that makes it happen.

Before there was a "cleantech" industry, there was Tim Healy. Tim figured out that he could route electricity through digital switches and create an energy marketplace. Companies could trade and share their energy when they weren't using it, then back it up on batteries for future needs. The concept was solid, but would utilities actually allow energy trading behind their backs? We invested anyway based on Tim's confidence and long-term vision. EnerNOC became an enormous success, paving the way for an entire cleantech industry. Today, EnerNOC's technology has saved more than 10,000 gigawatts of electricity since its inception. For perspective, ALL of San Francisco runs on just 6 gigawatts of electricity per year. Back founders who see the future before it exists.

I backed a 25-year-old first-time founder who wanted to digitize music. This was 1988. I was excited by the prospect. I knew it was possible, but to most, the idea sounded insane. Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooke had started Digidesign, and I introduced them to Paul Lego, a top student from my HBS class. They built the company that would change music forever. ProTools (now Avid) would allow musicians to track and digitize music. We invested and Paul joined them. As chief operating officer, Paul made a starting salary of $60,000 but negotiated stock options for 8% of the company. Best decision he ever made. By 1993, Digidesign went public at a $100 million valuation. By 1994, Avid Technology acquired them for about $200 million. We made roughly 20x on that investment. Digidesign invented ProTools which is the software that became the standard for musicians everywhere. MC Hammer wrote "Hammer Time" on it. Cant touch this.

My life’s mission is to spread entrepreneurship and venture capital around the world. In the process I continue to back visionary founders early, before they have fully baked their visions. At Draper, we backed Tesla when there had not been a successful car company started in the US for 50 years. We backed SpaceX when space travel was reserved for governments and hobbyists. We backed Coinbase, and still people seem to think the fiat banking system will not fail. In short… We invest in the future, one we would like to see. I favor entrepreneurs who have a passion for an optimistic and challenging outcome. We have backed more than 60 unicorns, 10 rhinos (fat unicorns), and three trinocorns (Tesla, SpaceX, and Bitcoin) that have reached more than $1 Trillion in market value. We’ve invested early in Bitcoin, Tesla, Robinhood, Twitch, Baidu, and SpaceX. At Draper University, I've unleashed 6000+ heroes (entrepreneurs) from 104 countries, sparking 2000+ companies. Six of these are unicorns, and 25 have reached greater than $100 million in market value. My main focus for the next decade? -Transforming medicine from chemo-therapies to BIO-CURES. -Driving Space and Transportation fields to new heights, improving defense. -Utilizing A.I. to improve everyone’s performance, even robots. -Making the Bitcoin ecosystem more attractive than the fiat-banking one. -Making what seems impossible, possible. Nothing is too weird, too wild, or too controversial for us. If you have a mission that will rock an major industry, I'm listening. Pitch me at tim@draper.vc