Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian (born April 24, 1983, in Brooklyn, NY) graduated from the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce in 2005 with degrees in commerce and history. That same year, with college roommate Steve Huffman, he co-founded Reddit as part of Y Combinator's first cohort. Reddit was acquired by Condé Nast in 2006. Ohanian returned to Reddit full-time as executive chairman in 2015 before stepping back in 2018, and in June 2020 he publicly resigned from Reddit's board, asking that the seat be filled by a Black candidate amid that year's racial-justice movement.

In 2010 he co-founded the seed-stage venture firm Initialized Capital, which grew to manage over $500 million across multiple funds and made early bets on Instacart, Coinbase, Opendoor, Cruise, Patreon, and Zenefits. In 2014, CB Insights ranked Ohanian first among investors for network centrality. He left Initialized in 2020.

In 2020–2021 Ohanian launched Seven Seven Six (776), an early-stage venture firm now managing close to $1 billion in assets, with founding partner Katelin Holloway. The firm operates more like a software company than a traditional VC, having built proprietary tooling (e.g., "Cerebro") to support portfolio companies, and made diversity central to its strategy from day one. 776 has been notably active in crypto/Web3 — including a $100M Web3 growth fund announced with Solana Ventures in 2021.

Beyond venture investing, Ohanian has become one of the most prominent backers of women's sports. He is a co-founder/owner of NWSL club Angel City FC, holds a minority stake in Chelsea Women's FC, and founded the women's track competition Athlos. He is married to tennis champion Serena Williams (2017); they have two daughters, Olympia (2017) and Adira River (2023).

• Stage & checks: Earliest-possible-stage investing — pre-seed through Series A — with checks generally in the ~$500K–$5M range for high-conviction deals.
• "Community as a moat": Drawing on his Reddit roots, Ohanian looks for products that can become movements, subcultures, and self-sustaining communities with strong network effects.
• Technology enhancing human connection: A recurring thesis that tech is most powerful when it strengthens human connection — increasingly applied to AI tools that help creators and communities build durable businesses.
• Crypto/Web3 conviction: A meaningful share of 776's portfolio has been crypto-related; he sees blockchain as a new substrate for network-effect and platform businesses.
• Women's sports as an undervalued asset class: His signature contrarian thesis — that women's professional sport is "generationally undervalued" — with a stated goal of giving athletes "real equity, real participation, in the upside."
• Diversity by design: 776 made backing diverse founders and emerging managers a core strategy rather than an afterthought.