Ashkan Mizani
OddBird VC | Investing Idea through Seed | Former Founder, Ex Division 1 NCAA Athlete
San Francisco, California
Skills
Education
- PU
Work Experience
2024
Partner
2024
Partnering with founders from idea through seed building legendary companies. Investments include: Rome AI // Agentic AI for Supply Chain Solea AI // AI OS for Home Service Businesses Watoga Technologies // AI OS for Mining Blok Intelligence // Frontier AI product development Investments supported: Antes AI // AI for Regulatory Compliance Metalcross // High throughput QA for Precision Manufacturing And others yet to be announced.
2025
Seed Investor
2025
Predict user behavior before launch. // Series A VC friends -- you want to be in this one.
2021
Angel Investor at Preseed + Seed
2021
Inbound orchestration platform for revenue teams // Series A led by 8VC
2024 - 2024
PFC Fellow
2024 - 2024
PFC Fellow at Pear VC.
2023 - 2024
Co-Founder
2023 - 2024
Allora is an AI-powered assistant helping first-time parents navigate life as new parents. I gained a ton of empathy for the founder journey and learned the importance of stacking the cards in your favor when building an early stage startup - full time founders, working in person, and prioritizing momentum.
2021 - 2024
Investor
2021 - 2024
I'm scrappy and primarily spend time sourcing pre-seed/seed angel investments through my founder network, current investment founder referrals, and peer investor relationships I've built and keep warm living in SF. I deploy my own capital. Sourced Directly: Default (inbound orchestration for revenue teams) invested at preseed, put more at seed which was led by Craft Ventures. Additional capital by 8VC. Mirage (custom LLMs for productivity) invested at inception, seed by Sequoia Capital Arc program, and acquired by Harvey Pillar (currency and commodity hedging) invested at inception, they got into Neo, seed led by J Ventures Blok (product development in the era of frontier AI) invested at preseed, seed investors included Rackhouse, Weekend Fund, MaC, Protagonist, and others. Sourced through my network: Rupa Health (root cause medicine) series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Acquired by Fullscript Varda Space Industries (space manufacturing) series B led by Caffeinated Capital Accern (no-code AI development platform) series B led by Mighty Capital, acquired by Wand AI. And more to be announced at a later date.
2022 - 2022
Special Projects (Product and Community Building)
2022 - 2022
Plato is a community for engineering leaders. Engineering Leaders engage in 1-on-1 mentorship, benefit from cohort-based learning, and access exclusive content. Plato was acquired by Coda and was previously part of Y Combinator's Winter 2016 cohort. I joined in a white space role to spearhead the build-out of our technical program management community product. I onboarded TPM leaders from Stripe, Amazon, Meta, Airbnb, Coinbase, Robinhood, and more. I also spent my time helping transform company culture and operations from web2 to web3 by hosting weekly company educational office hours and guests to speak.
2019 - 2021
Business Operations
2020 - 2021
Spin is an e-scooter and e-bike provider serving cities across North America and Europe. Spin was acquired by Ford Motor Company. I led cross-functional teams to develop and implement strategic initiatives in our markets, drove operational efficiency, and managed high-impact projects. I utilized my strong analytical skills to evaluate and report on performance metrics weekly, which helped inform decision-making and resulted in significant improvements in our business outcomes across markets.
Growth Lead
2019 - 2020
I implemented data-driven growth strategies, managed a $250,000+ performance marketing budget to support operations, and drove significant user acquisition and revenue growth through continuous experimentation. I analyzed campaign performance and collaborated with cross-functional teams to optimize local marketing efforts and increase ridership in our active markets.
2016 - 2019
Operations Manager + Supply Side Growth
2018 - 2019
Rinse is a tech-enabled laundry and dry cleaning delivery service serving major US cities. Rinse is backed by leading investors including LG Electronics, Javelin Venture Partners, Arena Ventures, Partech Partners, Asymmetry Ventures, Accelerator Ventures, and more. (Series D as of early 2025) Managed a team of salaried and hourly operation staff members and was accountable for a team of 200+ part-time W2 delivery drivers. I led our driver vertical at a time of high growth, I spearheaded white space projects, enhanced operational efficiency, and surpassed many performance goals for my vertical. I took pride in fostering a collaborative culture and empowered my team to learn new parts of the business excelling in their lanes and ultimately taking on more responsibility.
Operations + Community Manager
2017 - 2018
I grew into a role at Rinse where I managed our delivery driver community. I was adept at fostering engagement and growth through strategic communication and impactful initiatives. I demonstrated a track record of leveraging relationships I cultivated to drive community success and enhance our end-user experiences at their front doors.
Operations
2016 - 2017
Did whatever and went wherever I was needed for the success of our complex operation. I was dependable, had a good attitude, and pushed our pace.
2012 - 2014
Division 1 Student-Athlete, Football
2012 - 2014
I walked onto the football team and worked my way up the depth chart past many scholarship players onto the 2 deep rotation.