Seattle VC Profile: Rob Eldridge, Tapas Capital

When I started Ascend in 2019, I realized even though I was o-l-d OLD, I had more in common with the folks in town who were earlier in their professional investing journeys than the venerable VC’s I’d pitched as a founder. I admire and respect the new wave of Seattle/Pacific Northwest venture capitalists, and thought it would be fun to profile some of our region’s up and coming VC talents in these pages. —KW

Rob Eldridge was the CFO of Amazon’s China, Japan and India businesses. After that, he was the VP of Product for Fulfilled By Amazon (FBA). Now, he runs Tapas Capital, a burgeoning micro VC fund. There are few investors in Seattle with a more impressive operating track record. And yet, when I met him a few years ago, I was struck by how understated he was. Instead of a bombastic, “here’s how it oughtta be” grizzled vet, Rob brings curiosity and reserve to every relationship, allowing entrepreneurs to lay out their thoughts and giving space for the conversation to breathe.

What made you decide to be a professional investor?

I enjoy building and operating businesses and I realized how much I missed that after I left Amazon during my sabbatical/semi-retirement period. I was doing some early-stage founder advising and personal investing and thought I would marry the two activities and find a way to be more involved, and aligned, with a network of early-stage founders and their projects. That is when I decided to become a full-time VC.

What did you do before becoming an investor and how does that benefit your founders?

Product management, operational finance, investment banking, barkeep, housepainter, pedicab driver, English teacher. Had a lot of jobs, but technology has been a big part of it. At heart, I’m a tech geek – I learned to program in the early-80s and am now teaching myself python. In short, I have been involved in technology-related businesses since the early-90s and have built, operated and advised teams in a wide-variety of industries, on multiple continents, including most recently at Amazon where I spent a dozen years, and before that at Broadview, a boutique technology M&A firm based in Silicon Valley, and Sun Microsystems.

What are your most successful investments so far?

We’re early in our lifecycle and our portfolio companies are still growing and experimenting. I honestly feel like all of our companies have been pretty successful. It isn’t easy to build something from scratch, but products are being launched, teams are being built, customers are engaging, and feedback loops are operating. That seems like a good measure of success in the early days of a company’s evolution.

Why should founders want you on their cap table?

Between Greg and I, we bring decades of experience at Amazon.com (and elsewhere) where we built, operated, and scaled some of the world’s most innovative companies and we apply those learnings and our network to benefit founders in our portfolio.

How many new pitches (actual calls/zooms) do you take per month?

I see about 30 projects a month and take initial calls with about half of those project’s founders to learn more about them, what they are building, and determine if there is the potential for an investment fit.

How many new investments do you make per year?

Between 7-10.

What's your sweet spot(s) in terms of check size, valuation, and vertical?

Our average check size is about $100K and we prefer to invest early in a company’s lifecycle (pre-seed or seed rounds), although we have selectively made a couple later-stage investments. We are sector agnostic, and while we have invested in a handful of hardware companies, we get most excited about software-driven businesses creating brand new categories or operating in greenfield spaces.

What one portfolio company do you want to hype for us here?

Aaah…the Sophie’s Choice question. Laura Malcolm at Give InKind, Sarah Haggard at Tribute, Shane Kovalsky and Vince Coppola at Mystery, Ian Freed at Bamboo Learning, Kris Bleisner at Vega Cloud, Scott Hix at Avocor and Kevin Sun at Dex are all PNW-based founders working on some really cool products and we are lucky to have the chance to work with them.

What do you think the next ten years looks like for Seattle/Pacific Northwest startups?

I think the future is incredibly bright. The critical ingredient of highly qualified, entrepreneurial founders exists in abundance in the PNW and the supporting infrastructure of early-stage VCs, founder mentoring/networking forums, focused support for underappreciated founders, and an expectation of reinforcing success by giving back to the community are all being built and grown. We still have some progress to make along all of these dimensions, but I’m really excited to be part of such a vibrant and dynamic community.

What song is currently getting the most run on your Spotify/Apple Music?

Been revisiting Miseducation of Lauryn Hill quite a bit lately (which btw just reached Diamond status), as well as creating a list of inspired (e.g. as good as or better than the original) covers. Obvious ones like Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt, Alien Ant Farm’s Smooth Criminal, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Higher Ground and Nancy and Ann Wilson’s Lincoln Center performance of Stairway to Heaven are all on my list. But would love to hear who/what else should be considered (@robeldridge).