Open for applications
You’re special, and humanity is counting on you. We want you to work on your craziest idea.
We’re here to accelerate your journey to make an impact and be your most uniquely connected, hard-working, lifelong friend and ally. With the best network in the world, Soma has seeded over 20 multi-billion-dollar startups.
Zero percent taken, no gimmicks, no catches—just cash with zero dilution and unmatched, unfair network introductions.
Soma was founded in early 2015 by Aneel Ranadive after 11 years as a founder and a lifetime in Silicon Valley. Aneel started building startups in the mid-2000s and connected with the co-founders of Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, Box, Scribd, Reddit, Twitch, Sam Altman, and others—many of whom can be introduced to Soma founders. In the 10 years since launching Soma, we’ve seeded 22 unicorns, including early investments in Deel ($12B), Rippling ($13B), Ramp ($8B), Razorpay ($8B), among others.
Soma offers an extremely unfair network—Aneel Ranadive’s father, Vivek, built TIBCO, which digitized Wall Street in the 1990s and developed middleware that powered 80% of Fortune 500 companies. This legacy provides Soma with top executive and CEO connections to many of the largest businesses worldwide. Soma leverages these introductions after product-market fit to preserve and enhance relationships, helping founders reach escape velocity. The founders of Deel say, “Soma got us our first 100 customers,” and Ramp's founder say, “Soma changed our life.” Vivek also seeded and mentored companies like Google, Yahoo, Salesforce, and eBay, and worked closely with Steve Jobs. Aneel grew up learning from visionaries like Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Steve Jobs. TIBCO was valued at $30B in the early 2000s. Later, Vivek entered the sports world, competing against and beating Larry Ellison and Steve Ballmer to buy the Warriors and then the Kings NBA teams.
Soma has facilitated introductions to U.S. Presidents, including Obama and Biden, as well as industry leaders like Jamie Dimon and Elon Musk. We’ve made every introduction on this list at least once!
At Soma Fellows, our goal is to support your starting point and set you on the right trajectory—up to $1M in uncapped funding with no equity taken, no dilution, no fine print, and no gimmicks. You’ll gain access to a 20-person Soma team dedicated to being your most connected, hard-working ally. We’ll start with a few customer introductions and then scale up, opening any and every door to help you grow.
No need for camps, frat-house workspaces, or hidden catches—just take the initial cash investment and get going. We’ll organize dinners, events, and Q&A panels featuring breakout founders from our portfolio, and host concerts and Kings basketball games to bond with other exceptional builders. We believe iron sharpens iron, and we create opportunities to bring great minds together. We own the Golden 1 Center and 200 acres in downtown Sacramento, hosting top artists for games and concerts.
Soma Fellow alumni often use floor seats at Kings games or concerts to engage potential hires, customers, and investors. This is just one of the many tools we provide to support you for years to come.
Our mission is to seed generational founders who make a lasting impact, building lifelong, multi-decade friendships. We’ll have your back today and always. Let’s make it happen!
Soma is backed by partners from Sequoia, NEA, Insight, Iconiq, DST, IVP, Spark, Tiger, and many others. We’ll help you raise future rounds, create competitive bids, and protect your cap table. Over the past decade, we’ve helped our founders raise billions from top firms, seeding 22 unicorns along the way.
