David Wagonfeld
Partner
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- Full Name
- David Wagonfeld
- Title
- Partner / Co-Founder
- Firm
- Tandem Capital (Tandem Entrepreneurs Management Services LLC)
- Firm Type
- Seed-stage venture capital fund (also acts as an angel investor)
- Investment Stage
- Pre-seed and Seed
- Check Size
- Up to ~$500K in pre-seed and up to ~$2M in seed (firm-level; Tandem leads and co-leads rounds)
- Target Company Profile
- Product-focused founding teams disrupting traditional industries through a combination of technology and go-to-market innovation (customer acquisition, distribution channels, brand building)
- Sector Focus
- Transportation & logistics, food/beverage & CPG, media & entertainment, construction & real estate, consumer electronics, manufacturing, software/internet
- Geographic Focus
- United States, with a preference for companies that have a meaningful connection to the San Francisco Bay Area
- Location
- Menlo Park / Bay Area, California
Background
David Wagonfeld is a co-founder and Partner at Tandem Capital, a Menlo Park–based seed-stage venture capital fund founded in 2007 alongside Sunil Bhargava and Doug Renert. He has been a Partner at Tandem Entrepreneurs Management Services LLC since 2014. Tandem positions itself as "The Seed Fund Backing Traditional Industry Disruption," backing teams that pair technology with go-to-market innovation, and Wagonfeld's role centers on business strategy, go-to-market definition, and aligning product expertise with market opportunity.
Wagonfeld brings more than 20 years of experience spanning product management, strategy, and both public and private investing across hardware, software, and internet companies. He is a multi-time founder and has held partner or principal roles across several investment vehicles in addition to Tandem, including Castle Peak Partners (where he has served as Managing Partner since 2020), J-Ventures / J-Angels, Whirl Partners, and Standard Pacific Capital.
On the education side, he earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1993 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1995. In his own words on the Tandem team page, he describes what he enjoys as "Helping turn ideas into successful products. Skiing in powder."
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Invests at pre-seed and seed; at the firm level Tandem leads or co-leads with up to ~$500K (pre-seed) and up to ~$2M (seed), often with follow-on capacity.
- Looks for "stellar teams disrupting their industries with a powerful combination of tech and go-to-market innovation" — innovation that extends beyond the product into customer acquisition, distribution, and brand.
- Sector-agnostic on technology but oriented toward traditional / physical industries ripe for disruption: transportation & logistics, food/beverage & CPG, media & entertainment, construction & real estate, manufacturing, and electronics.
- Values experienced operators and founders who are open to hands-on strategy and go-to-market guidance while retaining decision-making authority.
- Prefers companies with a meaningful connection to the Bay Area, though it invests in startups based elsewhere.
Notable Investments
- 7shifts — Restaurant-employee scheduling software; Tandem/Wagonfeld participated in a Seed round (~$4M) in August 2017, co-investing with Tim Draper (Draper Associates).
- Tile — Bluetooth item-tracking devices; Tandem portfolio company.
- PagerDuty — IT incident-response/operations platform; a notable Tandem exit (later IPO'd).
- pHin — Smart water-monitoring for pools and spas (acquired by Hayward).
- Bash Gaming — Mobile social-casino gaming company; acquired.
- HoloBuilder — Construction reality-capture/360° documentation software; a Tandem exit.
- Nom Nom — Fresh dog food; a Tandem exit.
- AskElephant — AI workflow/sales-ops startup; among Tandem's more recent seed investments (May 2025).
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