Our Mission

Umami (noun): long undiscovered, the fifth fundamental taste describing savoriness or deliciousness - hard to describe in words, but you know it when you taste it and food just doesn’t taste as good without it

Umami Capital is the world's largest angel syndicate powered by Forbes 30U30 listers. We are dedicated to supporting outstanding founders, especially those of diverse backgrounds. We identify as Umami Capital because - just as diversity in tastes makes for a winning recipe - we see ourselves as the missing component that completes the winning mix for a company’s success.

When Umami invests, founders receive access to a community of 2000+ fellow founders, startup executives, and professionals who have the network, experience, and access to help companies scale. Our mission is to support a dynamic and innovative ecosystem through fostering diversity and inclusivity. We do this through the companies we invest in, the LPs we attract, and the advice and connections we provide.

At a Glance

>40 companies
>$7M capital deployed
$100K-$400K typical check size
>2000 LPs, most of whom are value-add founders, startup executives, and well-networked investors
>$1B combined valuation across portfolio companies
>50% of our portfolio companies are led by a person of color
~40% of funding has gone to female-led startups - far above the industry average of 2%

(info last updated August 1, 2023)

Co-Investors

Umami Capital has co-invested alongside partners from well-respected funds including:

Our Team

Umami Capital is led by James Lu Morrissey, the Co-founder/President of an enterprise SaaS company (~$30M in funding, >100 employees, multi-year Inc 5000 company, ranked a top 10 workplace in Boston for 2 years running, ranked a top 100 remote workplace in the U.S., ranked by Fortune as one of 100 most innovative companies in the U.S.). He’s been involved in the startup ecosystem for 10+ years (as a Forbes 30 under 30 active community member, Techstars mentor, etc), and an active startup advisor/investor for the past 5+ years. James has strong relationships across the early stage venture community, and as a founder himself developed a thesis for finding early stage founder-market-fit.

James is multiracial, was born and raised in a diverse neighborhood of Queens (NYC), and attended elementary school in Taiwan for a period of time. He believes that investors miss out on many innovative founders by not building networks/access to underrepresented communities.

Umami Capital venture ops is managed by Alice Shen, an Associate Director of Product Management at Wayfair (Fortune 250 company with $14B in annual revenue), where she was an early pre-IPO employee and now oversees the product roadmap for ~100 engineers and ~10 PMs. She also has years of web3 and angel investing experience. She is Asian American, served on Wayfair's DEI committee, and is a strong advocate of DEI in all forms - ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, sex, age, tenure, personality, working style, etc. - particularly on technology teams where diversity is often lacking.

Umami Capital has a network of scouts, mentors, and collaborators as well. Please reach out if you’re interested in getting involved.

Dealflow

We only invest in the most compelling opportunities across our networks (<2% of deals we see) and will syndicate every deal we personally invest in when possible.

Most of our deals are Pre-seed, Seed, or Series A and we secure pro rata rights in the vast majority of our deals.
We receive great dealflow from our networks including Forbes 30 under 30, Techstars, NYC/Boston tech communities, network of 2000+ investors, and network of fellow founders.
Founders provide us access and allocation because of our experience advising early-stage startups, as well as for the value-add of our 2000+ LPs.

The primary criteria we assess are:

Founder-market fit and founders having relevant expertise and experience
Traction and product-market fit
Market size and timing
Reasonable valuation with significant upside (>10x at minimum)

—

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: No offering for investment is made except pursuant to formal offering materials. You agree not to rely on the information contained herein for any investment, business, or financial purpose.