Hackers/Founders

Hackers/Founders

Hackers/Founders began as a gathering for engineers in a Silicon Valley bar, organized by Jonathan Nelson. By 2008 it had formalized into a membership network and eventually a venture fund, with a geographic focus that shifted deliberately away from saturated Bay Area deal flow toward markets where angel capital was scarce. Nelson relocated the firm's operational center of gravity to Mexico and later Costa Rica, betting that the next generation of enterprise software and fintech unicorns would emerge from Latin America. The firm deploys through a startup studio model paired with a traditional early-stage venture fund. It has historically written first checks into pre-seed and seed rounds, often acting as the lead institutional investor. Portfolio activity includes co-investment alongside 500 Global and a reported early position in Mexican fintech infrastructure. Hackers/Founders also runs cohorts and residency programs — its Co-Founder Network spans Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, San José, and Santiago, functioning as a distributed sourcing engine for technical founding teams. Nelson remains the public face of the firm, operating without a publicly listed investment committee or managing partner bench. In May 2025, Hackers/Founders announced a new accelerator track for startups building on decentralized identity infrastructure across LatAm, signaling continued commitment to technical founders in the region. The firm's total deployment and professional headcount are not publicly disclosed. Hackers/Founders functions less like a conventional venture firm and more like an always-on, community-driven talent filter. The meetup network — reportedly the largest of its kind for tech founders — acts as both brand and origination pipeline, giving the firm early visibility into entrepreneurial clusters before traditional funds arrive.