Brian Pokorny, who led photo-sharing service Daily Booth and Batch into a talent acquisition by Airbnb, is returning to SV Angel as a general partner.
He has a long history with the firm. He’s been a strategic partner of SV Angel since 2009, before he left to be CEO of DailyBooth. He has also worked with Ron Conway on angel investing since 2006. Pokorny personally has stakes in companies like Twitter, Square, OMGPOP, Milo, Chomp, TweetDeck, Circle, Bump, Posterous, Milk, Couple, Elepath, and MessageMe.
“Investing feels very natural for me,” Pokorny said. “You get to see a variety of things and you get to be very close to startups at an early stage.”
Before working with SV Angel the first time, he worked at Google. Through that, being CEO of Daily Booth and being acquired into Airbnb, he says he’s seen companies at every phase from early stage to the hyper-growth period and then into becoming a large, mature corporation. “My passion kind of lies with early-stage companies and entrepreneurs,” he said, adding that his experience running DailyBooth gave him the “founders’ perspective. You’re learning a tremendous amount from hiring, recruiting engineers, managing a product and managing a launch.”
A YC-backed company, DailyBooth had very promising traction numbers and momentum when it originally raised funding back in 2009. Pokorny later led a big strategic change inside the startup to focus on mobile platforms with the launch of photo-sharing app Batch.
“DailyBooth was a web-first company, but the user behavior was front-of-the-camera behavior and that moved to mobile phones with the front-facing camera,” he said. “Then Path and Instagram launched and we had lots of competitors around that time.”
The company was eventually acquired by Airbnb and Pokorny worked on recruiting and other community and local projects before coming back to SV Angel.
SV Angel’s founder and managing partner David Lee also just sent an e-mail to LPs about Pokorny’s return. Here it is below:
I am thrilled to welcome (back) [Brian Pokorny](https://twitter.com/brianp) to SV Angel! He will join as a General Partner starting today.
Many people in the tech community already know Brian, a.k.a. “Coach”. He was most recently the CEO of DailyBooth/Batch, a startup that was acquired by AirBnB.
Prior to DailyBooth, Brian and I worked with Ron as a Partner for SV 1 on investment decisions and adding value to portfolio companies. Thus he is stepping back into a familiar role. However he returns with a wealth of operational and startup knowledge in his 3 years at a startup. This experience will be invaluable insight for our portfolio founders. Many of the best young founders today will already attest that he’s he’s become a true “Coach” and trusted advisor to many entrepreneurs.
Brian has been angel investing since 2006 and reviewing investment opportunities since 2004. Having seen so many opportunities, he has unique insight into the trends and cycles related to the internet. Some of his personal angel investments include Twitter, Square, OMGPOP, Milo, Chomp, Tweetdeck, Circle, Bump, Posterous, Milk, Couple, Elepath, and MessageMe.
On a personal note, I’ve known Brian since 2005 and we became friends through working together at Google. And so it great for me to do business with a friend.
Welcome back, “Coach”!
-David