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Nate Doran

VC Fund & Angel Fund Operator

Seattle, Washington

Work Experience

  • Business Director

    2015

    SWAN Venture Fund is a series of four Seattle-based angel investor funds. We are currently investing into early-stage west-coast US and Canadian startup companies with a compelling team, market(s), working minimum-viable-product with first-customer revenues, and a real competitive advantage. Feel free to reach out, but make sure to let me know what you're all about.

  • Venture Partner

    2022

    Mastersfund is in its 2nd fund and invests in pre-seed and seed stage, women-led, tech companies with sales.

2023

  • Board Member

    2023

    Bold Reuse sells end-to-end reusable packaging programs to help customers eliminate waste, build customer loyalty, and reduce costs.

2018 - 2023

  • Board Observer

    2018 - 2023

    Curvafix is a a medical device company focused on an unmet need for fixation of curved bones in orthopedic trauma. Curvafix received U.S. FDA clearance for its device and is currently conducting the RESTORE Study focused on gathering clinical evidence in advance of commercial launch. Curvafix is a SWAN Venture Fund I and SWAN Venture Fund II portfolio company. www.curvafix.com

2019 - 2020

  • Partner

    2019 - 2020

    As Partner and the Business Development Director, I contributed my expertise in managing the process of sourcing large volumes of startups, filtering that down to a set of investable opportunities, and evaluating opportunities in due diligence. www.swanvg.com

2014 - 2016

  • Advisory Board Member

    2014 - 2016

    Jordan Schindler, asked me to advise him during the earliest stages of his company. I was happy to. Their smart-textile platform delivers active ingredients to and through the skin; for dermal and transdermal benefit. They support most modern garment manufacturing businesses that work with cotton, nylon, and polyester. From socks to shorts, shirts to linens, and everything in-between, their patented “Active” yarns consistently deliver differentiated value to their customers, and remain completely washable without degrading performance.

  • Entrepreneur Director

    2013 - 2014

    Responsibilities broadened at Kereitsu. I managed a deal sourcing network of 600 companies at any given time for the group, scheduled companies for deal screening, coached entrepreneurs with their business and pitch, and managed due diligence reporting for the group. By the end, I had interviewed well over 1000 entrepreneurs and led over 70 through the investment process to raise $53 million in collective investments.

2011 - 2013

  • Senior Due Diligence Project Manager

    2012 - 2013

    In my 2nd year with Element 8, I coordinated with the executive director, members, interns and entrepreneurs to develop, improve, and manage efficient deal screening, due diligence, and due diligence reporting, leading to roughly $4.25 million in investments. • Organized monthly screening calls: coordinated with entrepreneurs and the screening committee to ensure companies seeking funds are evaluated, and the best applicants pitch to E8 members • Lead weekly calls among due diligence project managers; trained and coached DD project managers to ensure deals were evaluated properly • Standardized investment screening evaluation criteria, designed new screening processes; saved dozens of hours of time for committee members, the executive director, and the interns • Recruited, interviewed, and evaluated project managers for the 2012-2013 year

  • Due Diligence Project Manager

    2011 - 2012

    After C6 systems (below), I realized that I could learn from successful business people who had built and sold companies, and I began my internship with Element 8 Angels. I coordinated with many angel investors, venture capitalists, and startup clean tech companies to manage different parts of an angel group operation: screening, due diligence, and term-sheet negotiations. Roughly $2.7 million of investments were made into the companies I worked through the process.

2010 - 2011

  • CoFounder

    2010 - 2011

    In my first year as an MBA student, I co-founded my first startup, C6 Systems, a sustainable gardening product company, with 6 PhD students. I pitched at UW's Environmental Innovation Challenge, Business Plan Competition, I pitched the idea to the Jones Milestones Program, and we applied for NSF Phase 1 grant funding and were approved.

  • Data Engineer

    2006 - 2009

    I managed the back-end data quality and processing for multiple federally-funded research studies while the data was being collected. I worked on about 8-10 studies at any given time, but I felt particularly fortunate to support studies like the After the JD 2 Study, the Health and Retirement Study, and Study of NFL Retired Players. This involved writing/editing scripts in SAS and SQL to load 10's of thousands of records received from the client into our systems, to automate testing of data quality as it was collected, to clean data, and deliver data to the client (the PI) at the end of each study.