Farooq Abbasi

Farooq is the youngest of four and a first-generation Indian immigrant. He studied with a view toward medical science but that journey was quickly averted (thanks Mood Rowghani!) toward venture capital at the ripe age of 19. Fast forward 15 years later and with a career solely dedicated to the craft of venture as an institutional investor and super angel, he was able to build Preface – a small, focused firm built for a better enterprise founder journey.

Simply stated, Preface is built differently. There is no ambiguity because we say what we mean and do what we do. There are no signaling risks because we chose a small fund size and concentrated (20 investments per fund over 3 years) strategy. Preface is structured to spend time and have a prepared mind - not to be driven by FOMO. There is no “small check” for Preface. Everyone matters. Preface is here to have an honest impact and spend time well on the journey of making something seemingly small eventually change people’s lives significantly.

Believing and working with someone at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey is one of the most fulfilling and learning-filled experiences. Farooq hopes to do so for many decades to come.

Farooq Abbasi is the founder and sole general partner of Preface Ventures. Prior to founding Preface, Farooq was with Costanoa Ventures where he led investments in companies such as Alpha Health, Lively, Auterion, and Leap. Prior to Costanoa, he spent time with DN Capital and Mosaic Ventures on both sides of the Atlantic investing in enduring businesses such as Remitly (RELY) and Auto1 (A1G). He began investing as a sole VC in companies including but not limited to Redlock (PANW), Truebill (RKT), Armory.io, and Ambient.ai.

In aggregate - he’s invested over $86m across 100 companies whose cumulative enterprise value is now over $10bn. More importantly, these companies solve important market problems that improve the lives of all stakeholders leveraging scalable, cutting edge (computational science and engineering) methodologies.

Farooq is passionate about diversity of inclusion and founded Diversity.vc in 2016. Farooq speaks Hindi, and Spanish and is learning Arabic. He’s wildly competitive and will challenge you in any sport 1:1.