Good Friends

Good Friends

Good Friends formed in 2017 when six founders — Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa of Warby Parker, Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield of Harry's, and Joey Zwillinger and Tim Brown of Allbirds — pooled personal capital and operating experience into a structured early-stage vehicle. All six were Wharton MBA Class of 2010 graduates who had built iconic consumer brands from the ground up. The firm operates from 30 Hotaling Place in San Francisco, placing it inside the city's dense founder-investor ecosystem. Good Friends targets early-stage companies, primarily Seed through Series A, where the founding team is building in consumer, enterprise software, fintech, digital health, and AI/ML. The firm is a generalist by structure but carries an operator-first thesis: the partners' pattern recognition comes from scaling supply chains, brand identity, and retail distribution at companies that collectively reached public-market valuations. The partnership structure favors direct equity and simple instruments, with frequent co-investment alongside Lerer Hippeau and Tiger Global Management. Confirmed portfolio positions include companies inside the consumer-tech and digital-native brand orbit, though individual company names are not publicly catalogued by the firm. The team operates with a lean core — day-to-day investment management is run by business partner Alexandra Cowie alongside the six founders. The firm has not disclosed total assets under management or aggregate deployment. Good Friends maintains a single office at 30 Hotaling Place and does not operate separate philanthropic or real-asset vehicles. In 2023, the firm was noted as an active participant in follow-on rounds for its portfolio companies (per Crunchbase News, 2023). What distinguishes Good Friends from peer venture firms is the absence of a pivot: the founders never left their operating roles. They invest their own capital and time between board seats at the companies they built, making Good Friends a vehicle for active founders still in the arena — not a retirement project for exited operators. That structure means portfolio companies get access to current CEO-level pattern recognition, not just post-exit advice. The Wharton Class of 2010 bond is the organizing principle; the firm does not market itself as a multi-family office or fund-of-funds, and it does not take outside limited partners that would demand a return clock, preserving a permanent-capital posture.