zach sims

18.4K posts

zach sims

zach sims

@zsims

exploring what's next. angel investor. former co-founder and ceo of @codecademy the easiest way to learn to code.

nyc and sf Katılım Şubat 2007
3.5K Takip Edilen16.7K Takipçiler
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zach sims
zach sims@zsims·
Today is my last day leading @Codecademy after 12 years. @ryanbubinski and I went from a prototype we hacked together in 3 weeks… To a business with more than 50m users that we sold for $500m+. Here are a few things we learned turning a breakout product into a great company:
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zach sims
zach sims@zsims·
congrats to @zackkanter, one of the most tenacious and long-term oriented entrepreneurs i know
Zack Kanter@zackkanter

I'm thrilled to announce @Stedi's $50m Series C, led by Lee Fixel from Addition with participation from @Stripe, @RibbitCapital, @USV, @FirstRound, @BoxGroup, and @BloombergBeta, along with angel investors including @tobi, Charlie Songhurst, @rauchg, @karimatiyeh, @Max, and more. This latest round brings our total funding to $142 million. We’ve grown enormously over the past year. Our number of paying customers has increased by 6x year over year, and our number of billed transactions has increased by over 7x. We’re now processing more than a billion claims and eligibility transactions annually – to frame this on a relative basis, we processed more transactions in February alone than we did in the first half of 2025 combined. This month, Stedi was named one of @TryRamp's fastest-growing vendors – across all categories, not just healthcare – for the second time in ten months; we’re the first non-AI company to make the list in five months. We’ve done all this while offering a level of support that (allegedly) doesn’t scale. We offer dedicated Slack and Teams channels to every customer and now have over 1,500 shared channels. Over the past 12 months, our median support ticket response time has decreased from 18.3 minutes to just 6.7 minutes, all while handling a 6.4x increase in support volume – with 100% of tickets answered by humans. Our customers send us thousands and thousands of questions and suggestions every month, day and night, and the learnings we get from this firehose of real-time feedback are the engine that turns our business. It is this process that has made us the fastest-growing clearinghouse by a wide margin. This latest round of funding allows us to continue to accelerate development across our platform and to continue to serve customers with a first-rate support experience. One key to that is continuing to build a world-class team – to that end, we are hiring for dozens of roles across engineering, product, design, operations, GTM, and more. If building the transactional layer for the future of healthcare sounds interesting to you, drop me a note.

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sudarshan
sudarshan@ItzSuds·
Yesterday, 11 months after I started, I got the final commit for fund 1 I raised 525k in 2 days. I thought I was made. 6 mo later, on Oct 1, I’d only signed 1.7m Fund returns helped, but the only change I made was to unapologetically be me. Being authentic pays, it’s just hard.
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Chris Hladczuk
Chris Hladczuk@chrishlad·
We raised a $27M Series A to replace the spreadsheets and human duct tape behind $100 trillion in global assets. Fund administration is the invisible backbone of private equity and venture capital - and it’s broken. Why? Financial data is scattered, stale, and locked inside legacy providers. Books take forever to close. Basic questions about your own fund take days to answer. So we rebuilt the general ledger, waterfall engine, investor portal, and portfolio management from scratch. One single source of truth for your firm. Our AI agents read emails, propose journal entries, and extract portfolio updates in seconds. Our CPAs review every output. Today, we administer $15 billion in assets - and we’re just getting started. Every fund CFO keeps getting asked: how will you adopt AI? Now you have an answer. Run your firm in real-time with @hanoverpark. –- Excited to partner with Jake Saper at @emergencecap @peterjhebert at Lux, @chadbyers/@pratyushbuddiga at Susa and CFOs at the largest private equity firms to forge this future.
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Jack Clark
Jack Clark@jackclarkSF·
AI progress continues to accelerate and the stakes are getting higher, so I’ve changed my role at @AnthropicAI to spend more time creating information for the world about the challenges of powerful AI.
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jake 🗺️
jake 🗺️@jakeottiger·
last friday was my final day at Thrive. witnessing the herculean effort that went into closing Thrive X was the way to finish. it resembled everything i love and admire about the place and its people. so what's next... i left to build any and all software for any and all businesses. an ~ai~ consulting company of sorts. i've craved to run a service based business like this where i know my customers and they know me. there's no amorphous corporate blob to deal with. clients deal with me. now, with leverage from AI, they can get world class, personalized service from one guy at a reasonable rate. i hope this model lets me build trust and goodwill between tech and the long tail of industries from Anthropic's survey. (important note: i will also work with startups and tech companies given my mandate is literally any business) i've started with a used machine shop in Louisville, a wayfinding company in Cleveland, and a distributor of rags (literal towels not RAG...) in LA. we'll see how it goes...
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Jack Altman
Jack Altman@jaltma·
I’m really excited to share that I’m joining Benchmark. The past two years as a full time investor have been the most rewarding of my career. I really love venture capital, which is not something I ever imagined I’d say when I was kid, but here we are. I love new ideas and being part of a team with a mission. I love getting to be there for people who are struggling towards goals they really care about. I love learning from people who are better CEOs than I ever was. I love the texture of the work, the competition, and the way the job lets you invest in relationships. I love it so much that I’ve even turned into a little venture nerd with a podcast who goes around harassing great investors and founders, trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible. I’ve certainly learned what I care most about, and what kind of investor I want to be. What I’ve realized is that I love investing at the Series A, when there’s enough going on that an investor can be useful but not so much that you can’t have an impact. I think there are many amazing ways to practice venture, it’s just the way that most speaks to me. And as I came to realize that, I started to think about how to best set myself up to do that craft as well as possible. It became clear to me there is nowhere better for this than Benchmark; the way they’re structured, their principles, their overall approach to investing, and their track record all create an environment that I believe will let me do my best work as an investor and help founders the most I possibly can. As I’ve gotten to know the team at Benchmark I’ve come to admire so much about each of them. Peter is truly playing his own game. A lot of what he says sounds like poetry at first, but as the ideas roll around in your head for a while you realize how much depth they have. I first heard about Eric many years ago from my friend Saji at Benchling while I was building Lattice, who described him as the most amazing board member and attributed him with a lot of the company’s success. That’s the kind of partner I want to be one day. Chetan is brilliant and truly thinks for himself; I’ve realized over time what a courageous guy he is. And then there’s my friend Ev, whose skills complement mine and who I just love to be around. I can’t wait to have him as a partner in crime. When given the chance to work with this group I just knew I had to go. One of my motivating north stars with Alt Capital was to build a firm and be a partner that I most would have wanted as an entrepreneur. Although I haven’t gotten everywhere I want to be yet, I’m proud of the work so far. And now I’m excited to build on that work at Benchmark, where I hope to increase my rate of learning and get armed with the power of a partnership so I can help founders reach their dreams even more. Thank you to the companies who’ve let me invest with them at Alt Cap. I’m keeping all my board seats and supporting everyone just the same as before. Thank you to the LPs who’ve backed me as well. I am so excited about the portfolio we have and am grateful I can stick with all those companies. And finally thank you to my teammates, Bala, Vivek, and Nate. Bala took a bet on me and started investing with me before it was remotely obvious, and we’ve been able to grow so much figuring it out together as investors. I credit Nate with helping Alt start feeling like a firm. He joined us from First Round over a year ago and made everything run smoothly. And while Vivek joined just a little while ago, even in the short time we’ve worked together he’s had a meaningful impact on how we think and invest. They’re all joining Benchmark with me. So pumped for this chapter.
Benchmark@benchmark

We are thrilled to share that @jaltma is joining Benchmark as our newest General Partner. The Benchmark partnership is built on a shared commitment to the craft of venture capital, where our work is defined by the depth of service and commitment to the founders we work with. We believe this work does not scale and is best practiced where we win as a team of partners. By operating as a true partnership rather than a collection of individual franchises, we ensure that every founder we back benefits from our combined experience and a singular, shared commitment to their success. We first met Jack as a founder of Lattice over a decade ago. We followed Jack as he built Lattice into a leader in its category and navigated the turbulence that every software company faced in 2020. We admired Jack’s character and the way he prioritized transparency and authenticity to build a great team. That same value system defined his transition to founding a venture capital firm, Alt Cap, where he has made a familiar commitment to craft and service over capital. As an investor, Jack has partnered with some of the most ambitious founders of the generation with his investments in Legora, Rogo, Owner, Avoca, Rippling, and many others. Founders told us “I call Jack first to work through the toughest problems,” “He is my most trusted partner on the board,” and “Jack provides steady and grounded support that is rooted in having been a founder himself.” He combines relentless energy, deep intellectual curiosity, and a competitiveness to see founders win, all anchored by high integrity. We have always believed that our firm’s strength lies in its equal partnership: a small, focused group of individuals who operate with the same authority, responsibility, and singular mission to support entrepreneurs from the earliest stages. By joining our partnership, Jack brings a fresh perspective that will help us continue this mission. Welcome to Benchmark, Jack. – Ev, Chetan, Eric, Peter

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Jarod Xu
Jarod Xu@Jarodxu7·
Excited to launch happycapy, an agent-native computer on your browser. Claude Code → Clawdbot → Happycapy > Private sandbox for everyone to run Claude Code anytime anywhere - no Mac Mini needed > GUI built for everyday user, visualizing skills and its output
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Justin Mares
Justin Mares@jwmares·
Today, 90%+ of healthcare spend (all $4.5T of it) goes towards treating chronic conditions after someone is sick. Less than 3% of that spend goes towards prevention. @Truemed exists to get more people investing in True Medicine. Exercise, food, supplements, movement, sleep, toxin removal… lifestyle interventions that help people treat and prevent disease, not just treat the symptoms of underlying sickness. We’re building tools that allow qualified individuals to unlock the $160B in tax-free HSA/FSA funds, and use them on these root-cause interventions. Since launching just 2.5 years ago, we’ve helped almost a million individuals pay for these interventions, and we’re just getting started. If we want to fix healthcare in America, we fundamentally have to help Americans get healthier. I’m extremely proud to announce our $34M Series A led by a16z, and am excited to continue our work to end the chronic disease crisis.
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Mikael Cho
Mikael Cho@mikaelcho·
@zsims @Codecademy @ryanbubinski What you did with @Codecademy was a big inspiration for me. Loved how simple you made the early product. I still remember using it. All these years later, it still stands out in my memory.
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zach sims
zach sims@zsims·
Today is my last day leading @Codecademy after 12 years. @ryanbubinski and I went from a prototype we hacked together in 3 weeks… To a business with more than 50m users that we sold for $500m+. Here are a few things we learned turning a breakout product into a great company:
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zach sims
zach sims@zsims·
@eladgil the greenwich hotel is the right answer
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zach sims
zach sims@zsims·
@jsngr excited to see what you cook up next!
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Aditya Agarwal
Aditya Agarwal@adityaag·
Good health should be joyous and fun. Not a chore. I started Bevel because I didn’t want to feel tired anymore. I wanted to be in control of my own health. I didn’t want to sift through mountains of data. I wanted to act upon insights with confidence. And I didn’t want yet another device. I wanted Bevel to work with the hardware that I already had. This is a hard problem to solve well. There is a ton of integration work to do. We have to build a lot of custom pipelines/models to actually make the AI work well. We have to make the user experience simple and delightful. I am very excited by our progress. We have hundreds of thousands of active users and our revenue has grown 8x in the last 12 months. I am confident that our product’s combination of longitudinal and contextual data results in the highest quality health guidance. It’s still early days but the progress and momentum are palpable. We are excited to be partnering with General Catalyst, the world’s best health care investor to continue building Bevel. Our $10M Series A will allow us to build even faster and serve more users at scale. We are still in the early days. Come join us to help make the world healthier.
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Raphael Schaad
Raphael Schaad@raphaelschaad·
Safari now forcing me to do three taps to close one tab surprisingly is one of my biggest UX annoyances of iOS 26. iOS 18 vs. 26:
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catherine jue
catherine jue@juecd__·
I'm thrilled to share that @onkernel has raised $22M in Seed + Series A funding from @Accel with participation from @ycombinator @cintrifuse @vercel @svangel @RefineryVC @paulg @zeeg @charliermarsh & more 🚀 @rfgarcia and I started Kernel because LLMs can now automate any computer work — yet cloud infrastructure remains the biggest challenge holding developers back from adopting it at scale. We’re already powering workflows for co’s including @CashApp @rye + countless start-ups. And we’re just getting started 🧵
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Jack Altman
Jack Altman@jaltma·
My goal when I became a full time investor was to be the type of partner I would have most wanted during my time building a company: someone who had done the work I was doing before, who had the network to help me reach my goals faster, and who had my back no matter what. I’m really happy to share that we’ve raised Alt Cap II, a $275M early stage fund. We backed ~20 companies at Seed and Series A in Alt Cap I. The new fund will be the same structure with a bit larger checks. But mostly we just want to be in business with people who inspire us. There’s no way to say it without sounding cheesy but it’s true; I feel unbelievably lucky to do this job in the way I get to do it. A special thanks to the founders that let us back them in Alt Cap I, you all are what it’s all about for me!
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Matt Pavelle 🇺🇸
Matt Pavelle 🇺🇸@mattpavelle·
We raised $20M to scale @doctronic from 1M to 100M users. Led by @lightspeedvp with @usv, @mantisVC, @SevenStars_VC plus @drfeifei @jdesai01 @scottbelsky But funding isn't the story. The story is that Americans have already chosen our AI for healthcare. 50,000 to 100,000 visits weekly. Half come back in 7 days. Treatment plans that match board-certified clinicians 99% of the time. While others debate if AI belongs in healthcare, we shipped it. We've handled 15 million medical conversations. Instead of waiting three weeks for primary care, you can get it in 20 minutes from a licensed physician for $39. The physician shortage hits 120,000 by 2034. We're not waiting. Neither are our users.
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Dalton Caldwell
Dalton Caldwell@daltonc·
Paul, Bryan and I are proud to announce the close of Standard Capital's $425M Fund I. Standard Capital is Series A for the best founders. Applications for our inaugural funding cycle are open now.
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Patrick Hsu
Patrick Hsu@pdhsu·
Thrilled to share that I’ve joined @ThriveCapital as a Venture Partner, where I will be helping to build and invest in companies that can push the boundaries of science and technology.  I’ve known many of the Thrive team for years and have always admired their warmth, intellect, optimism, and boundless ambition to be the most meaningful partner to founders across every stage and sector.  My work has been guided by the belief that alpha is always found at the frontier, with AI starting to achieve human-level performance in generating independent work products, robotics transforming the physical world, biotechnology becoming engineerable, and energy abundance within reach…  This is an incredible time to invent and build new companies and I’m excited to get going. I’m grateful for the last few years investing at NFDG across seed to growth. Oh - and @arcinstitute will still be my main gig! My science isn’t going anywhere :)
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