Owen Van Natta

Owen Van Natta (born November 12, 1969) is a longtime technology operator turned early-stage investor. He earned a BA in English and American Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1992. He began his notable operating career at Amazon.com (1998–2005), where he rose to Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development and was part of the founding team of A9.com.

Van Natta is best known as one of Facebook's earliest senior executives, serving as Chief Operating Officer from September 2005 and later as Chief Revenue Officer until early 2008, helping build the company's early business and monetization operations. He subsequently became CEO of Project Playlist (2008) and then CEO of MySpace (April 2009–February 2010) during News Corp's ownership, where the business generated roughly $226M in revenue in 2009.

In February 2010 he joined Zynga as Executive Vice President of Business — responsible for revenue strategy, corporate development, and international expansion — and joined Zynga's board of directors in August 2010, remaining through the company's 2011 IPO period. (His stub-listed `zynga.com` email dates from this era.)

Since leaving operating roles, Van Natta has focused on investing. He founded 415, LLC in 2014 (with Grace Stanat) to seed and advise early-stage companies, and in 2019 founded Prefix Capital, an early-stage fund where he is Managing Partner. He is a prolific angel investor with 50+ recorded investments.

• Invests at seed through Series A/B, with checks roughly $100K–$5M and a sweet spot near $1.5M.
• Concentrates on AI, DeepTech, and FinTech, plus broader high-tech and enterprise software — favoring technically differentiated, "technology-driven" companies.
• Primarily backs U.S. / San Francisco Bay Area startups.
• Brings an operator's lens from scaling Amazon, Facebook, MySpace, and Zynga — value-add around revenue strategy, corporate development, partnerships, and growth/user engagement (the same areas 415 advertises for its advisory work).
• Frequently co-invests alongside investors such as Sam Lessin, Austin Clements, and Yves Sisteron.