Nabeel Hyatt
General Partner at Spark Capital
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
General Partner
2014 - Current
Spark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm. We invest in phenomenal products we love and the creative humans behind them. We do things a little differently and aren't afraid of risk. Spark-backed companies include Twitter, Discord, Anthropic, Cruise, Niantic, Oculus, Warby Parker, and tumblr. I joined in 2012, founded the west coast office, and have led early investments and/or sit on the board of Discord, Postmates (acquired by Uber), Sonder (IPO), Cruise (acquired by GM), Adept AI, Capella Space, Descript, Bot Co, Instawork, Zum, AllStripes, Sonera, Wild Type, Granola, Harmonix (acquired by Epic Games), Proletariat (acquired by Activision), and North (acquired by Google). My primary drive is being in service to founders on the search for new markets. There are plenty of investors focused on implementing playbooks, I study what it takes for truly risky, new, interesting things to create new markets. I tend to look for products in which the underlying technology or systems can be extremely complex, but are presented as a simple, magical experience to the people who use them. That rare mix of design and technology.
Venture Partner
2012 - 2014
Am I really sure I want to be a VC?
Spark Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in the consumer, commerce, FinTech, software, frontier, and media sectors.
Partner
2025
www.tabletoplibrary.com
Board Member
2018
Led a round into the company when it was under $10m in revenue, as they worked through a pivot from "uber for kids" to hyper-growth student transportation logistics company. Valued over $1b in '24.
Zūm provides child transportation for school districts and busy families.
Raised $399,579,482.00 from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Board Observer
2016
We led a round into Discord a few months after the product launched, when they had a few thousand users.
Discord is an online voice, video, and text communication platform designed for creating communities.
Raised $995,408,718.00 from IPOSharks, Arcane Group and Flat Capital.
Board Member
2016
We led the Series A into Sonder, at the time it was called Flatbook and operating just in Montreal. $2.2b IPO in 2022.
Sonder is a tech-driven hospitality company offering spaces built for travel and life in cities around the world.
Raised $839,550,000.00 from Talent Resources Ventures and TriplePoint Ventures.
Board Member
2014 - 2020
We invested when Postmates was ~10 employees, focused on three cities, and I served on the board for six years. Acquired by Uber that closed at $5b in 2020, awful lot happened in between.
Serve is a friendly, autonomous delivery robot.
Board Member
2015 - 2016
We led the Series A a few weeks after their first private demo of a fully autonomous driving system. Acquired by GM for over $1b, then spun back out, now valued over $30b.
GM
2010 - 2012
Early stage through IPO. Headed up a studio, managed several games and launched Indiana Jones' Adventure World, which Kutaku called "an actually fun social game"
Zynga is a mobile game developer that creates and operates social games as live services played on the Internet.
Raised $2,318,550,786.00 from Kleiner Perkins, T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley and Fidelity.
Founder, CEO
2007 - 2010
Founding through exit. Early OG social gaming company. Building live, synchronous, music social spaces and games. Acquired by Zynga.
Co-Founder, VP Product
2001 - 2005
Co-founded. A spin-out from the MIT Media Lab, and one of the "Ideas of the year" (ny times) in 2003. Ambient was a consumer hardware startup focused on ubiquitous computing and built lyrical "internet information" devices like a clock that told you the weather and a glowing orb that told you about your stocks, all before wifi was in homes. They sold everywhere from the Museum of Modern Art to Best Buy to Radioshack, and were well-loved products, but ultimately, they never broke through to the mainstream.
Ambient Devices provides a complete solution to offer wireless products to consumers that make tangible interfaces to digital information.
Raised $8,600,000.00 from First Round Capital, Rose Tech Ventures, Nicholas Negroponte, New York Angels and .406 Ventures.