Cyan Banister, a renowned angel investor and startup founder, has joined Founders Fund. She’s the 11-year-old firm’s first female investing partner.
According to a Bloomberg story, investors at the San Francisco-based outfit now include its billionaire cofounder Peter Thiel; cofounder Ken Howery; managing partner Luke Nosek; managing partner Brian Singerman; partner Geoff Lewis; partner Scott Nolan; and Banister.
The company also employs an associate, Zachary Hargreaves; principals Trae Stephens and Napolean Ta; and a chief scientist, Aaron VanDevender.
Banister has more years of experience as an investor than some of the firm’s other members. As a venture capitalist, however, she’ll presumably have more money to plug into startups. Indeed, Founders Fund announced just Friday that its sixth fund has closed on $1.3 billion in capital commitments.
Like many of those affiliated with Founders Fund, Banister is both a founder and former operator. In 2007, she launched Zivity, an online platform for pin-up photography. She also held a variety of manager roles at the messaging and email security company IronPort Systems, which Cisco acquired for $830 million in 2007.
Together with her husband, Scott Banister, an IronPort cofounder, Banister has made dozens of angel investments over the years, including in Space X, Uber, and DeepMind Technologies, acquired by Google for more than $500 million in early 2014.
Their track record is sufficiently impressive that the Banisters won Angel of the Year at the ninth Crunchies ceremony, hosted in San Francisco last month. “Angel investing is a team effort,” said Banister, who appeared on stage to accept the award. “We wouldn’t be where we are today without our friends, fellow investors, entrepreneurs who send us deal flow, and also companies that allow us to be on their journey.”
