Deal's $200M Unicorn Investment

Shaan tells the story of his first unicorn investment in Deal, though he regrets not getting in earlier.

"One of my angel investments officially raised at over $1 billion today, although it's not super exciting because I was trying to invest from the seed round. I was running my company at the time, and I only wanted to invest because I thought it was a great idea and liked the founder, but I forgot to follow up. When I finally did, he said they closed two months ago but would try to get me into the A round.

When the A round came, he said it was super competitive and couldn't get me in. Finally, he messaged me saying, 'Hey man, I'm gonna make sure I get you in this time. I feel like I messed you over, we're definitely gonna get you in here in the B round.' It was at a $200 million valuation. I was like, 'Bro, $200 million? I knew you when you were a baby, this is way too high.' But I said forget it, I'm in. And now that company is worth over a billion dollars.

If I had done it at the seed, which was probably like $10-15 million coming out of YC, that would have been much more interesting - taking $10 million and turning it into a billion. But more importantly, I can now say I invested in a unicorn, so that's just a stamp I needed to collect."