Chris DeVore keynoting the 2013 GeekWire Awards.
Chris DeVore keynoting the 2013 GeekWire Awards.

Founder’s Co-op, the 6-year-old Seattle angel investment firm led by Andy Sack, Chris DeVore and Rudy Gadre, has raised $10 million in new capital that it will use to help bankroll early-stage startup companies in the Pacific Northwest. The money marks just a portion of the funds that Founder’s Co-op plans to raise, with a SEC filing today indicating that the firm could raise up to $20 million.

“This is just a first close — we’ll have more to say about the investor mix (and) final size of the fund later,” said DeVore in an email to GeekWire. “But we’re very excited to be in business with a new fund and a new partner — Rudy Gadre — to help the strongest entrepreneurs in the northwest build the next generation of global tech leaders here in the region.”

In a blog post, DeVore said that the fund is capped at $25 million. The firm previously raised an $8 million angel fund in January 2012, including cash from Concur co-founder Raj Singh; Ontela co-founder Dan Shapiro; former Swype CEO Mike McSherry; angel investor Vijay Vashee, and more than 50 others.

founderscooopFounder’s Co-op invests early in a company’s life cycle, helping to jumpstart new ventures in the formative stages of development. Its investments include Estately, FlexMinder, Haiku Deck and Simply Measured, as well as Seattle-based Apapture, which was sold last year to IMS Health, and Portland-based AppFog, which sold last year to CenturyLink.

It will continue to focus on startups in the Pacific Northwest, a region that DeVore described as “one of the best places in the world to build companies that matter — economically, socially and culturally.”

Rudy Gadre
Rudy Gadre

“We admire every entrepreneur who has the courage to strike out on their own, but as a fund we’re on the lookout for teams hungry and foolish enough to think they can build the next world-changing company right here in our own backyard,” he wrote.

Founder’s Co-op hired Gadreperhaps the most prolific angel investor in the Pacific Northwest with more than 50 companies in his portfolio — in December. Gadre is the former general counsel at Facebook, and before that worked in executive roles at Amazon.com.

Sack — who runs the TechStars Seattle program — and DeVore — Chair of Seattle’s Economic Development Commission — previously co-founded Judy’s Book.

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