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Machineparty
Joshua Schachter's personal venture vehicle, investing small checks in technical founders from the creator of del.icio.us.
Machineparty
Machineparty is the personal investment vehicle of Joshua Schachter, the programmer who founded del.icio.us. After Yahoo acquired the company, Schachter spent a brief tenure inside the acquirer before leaving in 2008, then began writing small checks through Tasty Labs, a startup studio, and a focused angel portfolio. Machineparty formalized that activity, operating from San Francisco without a dedicated website, institutional fundraise, or LP base. Schachter's deployment pattern favors pre-seed and seed-stage software companies where the founder is a builder. He writes checks in the $50,000 to $250,000 range, often as a first-check investor, and does not reserve for follow-on capital. Known portfolio names include mobile payments startup Square (per TechCrunch, 2010), bookmarking successor Pinboard, and technical infrastructure products. Geographically, the portfolio skews toward the Bay Area and New York City, reflecting Schachter's network from his Yahoo, MIT, and early-web years. Machineparty has no external website, no disclosed headcount, and no known parallel fund structures. Schachter has not announced any fund closes or limited partners. In 2011, Tasty Labs raised seed funding from prominent investors including Andreesen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures (per AllThingsD, 2011), operating as a startup studio with co-founders Nick Nguyen and Paul Rademacher, but that entity is separate from Machineparty's angel book. Schachter later joined Google as a product manager, then moved to a role at Alphabet forward-propulsion lab X. Schachter built del.icio.us as a solo founder and sold it for an estimated $30 million (per The New York Times, 2005). Machineparty's architecture — no outside LPs, no fund cycle, no PR — reflects that exit's size and the operator's preference for code over capital. It is venture capital organized as a hobby.
General information
Firm type
Venture Capital
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Principals
Joshua Schachter
Founder
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Machineparty?
Joshua Schachter makes all investment decisions personally. Schachter is the sole principal; there is no investment committee, no junior partners, and no institutional LP base. The vehicle operates as an extension of his personal balance sheet, without a published fund structure.
Is Machineparty a fund or an angel portfolio?
Machineparty is an angel portfolio organized under a personal investing vehicle. It does not appear to have outside limited partners and has never publicly described a fund structure. In practice, it operates as Schachter's personal checkbook for early-stage software investments.
What investment stages does Machineparty target?
Schachter writes pre-seed and seed checks, typically between $50,000 and $250,000. He does not lead rounds and does not reserve for follow-on capital. His pattern favors backing a technical founder at the very beginning of a company's life.
Which sectors does Machineparty invest in?
Confirmed investments cluster in consumer internet, developer tools, and financial technology. Schachter's own product background biases the portfolio toward tools for developers, infrastructure software, and internet-native businesses. He does not publish a sector-negative list.
How can a founder reach Machineparty?
There is no public contact mechanism. Machineparty has no website, no LinkedIn page, and no publicly listed email address. Founders typically reach Schachter through the network of del.icio.us alumni, Yahoo product veterans, and the broader Silicon Valley angel community.
Is Machineparty related to Tasty Labs or any other Schachter vehicle?
Tasty Labs was a startup studio Schachter co-founded in 2011 with Nick Nguyen and Paul Rademacher and raised outside venture funding for, but it is separate from Machineparty. Machineparty holds Schachter's personal angel investments and predates Tasty Labs. The two entities do not appear to share co-investment mandates.
Where does the investment capital come from?
The capital is Joshua Schachter's personal wealth, likely sourced from the sale of del.icio.us to Yahoo in 2005 for an estimated $30 million, plus subsequent equity appreciation during his Yahoo tenure and later roles at Google and Alphabet. No external capital has been disclosed for Machineparty.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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