Menlo Park, California, United States
Besides co-founding Deep Venture Partners, my most recent work includes executive corporate development experience at a fast growing Series C-stage startup and previously as a venture capitalist with a focus on AI, ground transportation, marketplaces and network effects, travel, and other areas in both B2B SaaS and B2C. My exits from angel investments (with realized returns up to 26x and unrealized returns up to 351x) include Grove Collaborative (NYSE: GROV), SpotHero (announced acquisition by Uber), LoungeBuddy (acquired by American Express), Beanworks (acquired by Quadient), Trucklabs (acquired by Conmet), Willing (acquired by Metlife), Fishbowl (acquired by Glassdoor), Properly (acquired by Compass), and Kanvas (acquired by Verizon); other active angel investments listed below. Achieved additional exits (up to 14x) including multiple IPOs from my institutional investments at Tandem Capital and Autotech Ventures. I have served as a Board Director or Observer to over a dozen venture-backed companies (and helped with many of their exits). I am a contributing author to Techcrunch and Forbes and frequent interviewee by the media about startups and investment theory (over 150 interviews). In addition to VC and corporate development experience I have worked as a Fortune 500 product executive and founder/CEO of a venture-backed travel marketplace. Additional personal background is on my Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hoffer Excited for the future!
Deep Venture Partners is an early stage Silicon Valley fund with an affinity for deep tech and other domains. My co-founders include Ben Kaplan, who was founder/CEO of two $10M+ annual revenue companies, and Luc Vincent, who was VP of AI at Meta (Facebook) and the recognized founder of Google Streetview and inventor with over 100 patents. Collectively, we are a team of company builders and technologists. Sign up for our podcast! www.deepvp.com
Independent Director at Mode Mobile which generated in 2025 ~$40M in revenue and ~$12M EBITDA (including the full year revenues and EBITDA of companies it acquired in 2025). Mode Mobile has previously been ranked the #1 fastest growing software company in the US by Deloitte.
Citian is an AI-driven "smart city" SaaS software company backed by Founder Collective, MHS Capital, Spider Capital, and the founders of OpenGov (acquired for $1.8B), HotelTonight (acquired for $400M), and XFund, among others. I joined Citian as an Advisor in August, 2023, and was "promoted" to the Board of Directors in May, 2024.
Hayden is generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue and is backed by TPG, Autotech Ventures, FJ Labs, and other VCs. I’ve played multiple roles with Hayden over the years including as an angel investor and Advisor in my personal capacity, supporter while at Autotech Ventures, and as full-time Senior Vice President of Corporate Development (see press release below). I joined Hayden full-time after the Series A and helped drive fundraising for the Series B ($55M) and Series C ($90M, led by TPG), both of which closed within a year of my joining. I’ve also been responsible for leading the company’s expansion into China, leading negotiations with M&A targets, and defining platform and partnership/M&A strategy.
Autotech Ventures is an early stage transportation-focused venture capital firm with $500M+ AUM. I spent 5 years at Autotech as one of two Managing Directors (GPs) who led investments and sat on Boards. During that time I helped grow the firm from $120M under management in the first fund to over $500M under management across three main funds. My exits included three IPOs plus three acquisitions (half of the firm's exits as of late 2023). I served as a Board member (or occasionally Observer/deal lead) for over a dozen companies. None of my companies shut down. I take pride in all the references I received from the founders/CEOs I supported. These are viewable below in the Recommendations section of my LinkedIn profile.