Jeff Clavier
Jeff Clavier is Founder of Uncork Capital, one of the OG micro-VC firms. Invested in 200+ cos.
He began advising and investing in early stage tech startups more than 20 years ago after first working as a CTO for a fintech startup in France. He founded Uncork Capital in 2004 (then called SoftTech VC) to serve an unmet need of startup founders: active support and capital for companies in their first 18 months of life. Over the years, Jeff brought on partners with diverse backgrounds and networks; together they have invested in 200+ companies.
With equal doses of humor, candor and hustle, Jeff works hard to help guide his companies through the most critical early stages. Jeff is often the first large check, as well as the longest relationship, for the founding team.
Jeff has supported multiple companies that have reached successful outcomes, including Fitbit (NYSE:FIT); Sendgrid (NYSE:SEND, Twilio); Eventbrite (NYSE:EB); Mint (Intuit); Brightroll (Yahoo); LiveRamp (Acxiom); Wildfire (Google); Bleacher Report (Turner); Sapho (Citrix) and Vungle (Blackrock). The founders of his most successful companies have a few things in common: a clear vision for their product or industry, an understanding of the dynamics of their market, smarts and determination. It was never easy: each of them almost failed multiple times, but pushed through adversity to make it happen.
His current investments include Vidyard, Postmates, Molekule, Shippo and Front. He is a board director at Loft Orbital, Spansive, Scroll, Intermix, Arch Systems and a couple of still-stealth startups.
Jeff was born, raised and educated in France. He graduated from Université Paris Descartes with an MS in Computer Science and a degree in Distributed Computing. He was an early employee at a fintech startup called Effix, where he started as a developer and became its CTO. Reuters acquired Effix and Jeff moved into product development and leadership roles across the company. In 2000 he immigrated to the U.S. and joined RVC, Reuters’ $450 million corporate venture capital fund, as a general partner in its Silicon Valley office.
