Aaron Harris

Aaron Harris graduated cum laude from Harvard University in 2006 with a degree in History and Literature. He began his career at Compass Advisors, a boutique investment bank in New York City, before spending three years at Bridgewater Associates, where he served as COO of a thirty-person analyst group and was responsible for product design of internal technology. These early experiences in finance and operations gave him a deep understanding of systems, decision-making, and organizational dynamics that would later inform his work in the startup ecosystem.

After leaving Bridgewater, Harris co-founded Tutorspree with Josh Abrams and Ryan Bednar, an online marketplace for high-quality tutoring. Tutorspree was part of Y Combinator's 2011 batch and went on to raise funding from Sequoia Capital. The experience of building and running a venture-backed startup gave Harris firsthand insight into the challenges founders face, from product-market fit to fundraising. This led to his joining Y Combinator as a Partner in 2013, where he spent over seven years funding more than 1,000 companies and became instrumental in building YC's Series A program, helping founders raise over $3 billion across 200+ Series A and B rounds.

In 2021, Harris departed Y Combinator to co-found Magid & Company, a firm of fundraising strategists that coaches founders on how to navigate growth and fundraising independent of VC interests. Magid has helped founders raise over $1 billion across 32+ rounds, focusing on Series A and beyond. Harris is also an active angel investor, a member of Antler's advisory board, a frequent expert commentator in Forbes, TechCrunch, and Insider, and the author of the PostRound newsletter, which provides data-driven analysis and strategic guidance on early-stage fundraising.

Aaron Harris invests at the earliest stages (pre-seed and seed), writing checks typically in the $10K-$50K range. His investment perspective is shaped by his extensive experience at Y Combinator evaluating thousands of startups and his hands-on work helping founders through the Series A process. He focuses on sectors including enterprise applications, fintech, blockchain/crypto, and marketplace businesses. Harris is particularly attuned to founder quality, clear thinking about problems, and the ability to build conviction in a fundraising process. Through his writing and advisory work, he emphasizes that founders should approach fundraising as a strategic process -- managing leverage, timing, and narrative -- rather than simply pitching for capital. His work at Magid & Company gives him a differentiated view of the funding landscape, as he sees the Series A market from both the founder and investor side.