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William Smith

William Smith

Founder turned investor, venture partner, and expert in AI/ML/Dev and SaaS

william-smith
Palo Alto, California
San Francisco, California
Joined April 2025
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Summary

William Smith is a seasoned venture capital investor with a dual focus as a General Partner at Octave, a seed-stage fund specializing in enterprise data startups, and a Venture Partner at Next47, where he focuses on AI/ML/Dev and SaaS. His investment portfolio includes significant contributions to companies like Forethought, Notion, Tonic, Transform, Weights and Biases, and Datavant. theorg+2
Prior to his investment career, William demonstrated strong entrepreneurial leadership as the Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Euclid. Under his guidance, Euclid developed into one of the world's largest real-world behavioral datasets before its acquisition by WeWork in 2018, showcasing his expertise in data infrastructure, machine learning, and privacy. theorg
William actively contributes to the startup ecosystem through his writings, co-authoring articles on Medium and Next47's insights page. These publications offer valuable guidance to founders on critical topics such as mastering Series A fundraising, strategic sales hiring, and effective business planning, reflecting his deep empathy for founders and commitment to supporting their ventures. n47+2

Work

Education

Writing

Making Your First Sales Hire? Avoid Some Common Mistakes

May 1, 2023

Article offering advice to founders on common pitfalls to avoid when making their initial sales hires for their startup.

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To Plan or Not to Plan — What Every Founder Needs to Know

March 1, 2023

Article discussing the importance of planning for founders, covering aspects like headcount, spending, ARR, and customer expectations.

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Mastering the Series A: Essential strategies for founders

Article providing founders with insights and strategies for successfully raising a Series A funding round, covering pitching, operating plans, customer references, and organizational readiness.

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