Susan Akbarpour

Susan Akbarpour is a Managing Partner at Candou Ventures, an early-stage fund based in Menlo Park. Candou says it provides early-stage companies with capital, attention, and operating experience, and focuses on helping entrepreneurs shape plans into investable businesses, fund seed rounds, and raise from tier-one VCs.

Her Candou biography describes her as a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist with more than 30 years of hands-on experience building technology and media products and businesses. It says she founded several startups and, after graduating from Stanford University Graduate School of Business with an MSx / Master of Science in Management, focused on consumer-centric technologies intended to change the “internet consumer as-a-product” model.

At Candou, Akbarpour works on sourcing, developing, and supporting startups focused on SaaS, AI, blockchain, and consumer internet. Her Candou profile also says she serves on the boards of Facenote and Algopix and is a limited partner in Practical VC and Venture University Venture Partners.

She has written publicly on entrepreneurship and venture capital, including a 2021 article on pitching to VCs. Her Candou bio also notes writing for Forbes, IPR Journal, and Disruptor Daily, conference speaking, and philanthropic work including the 2021 creation of the Akbarpour Aalaei Fellowship for Farsi-speaking Stanford GSB MBA, MSx, or PhD students with financial need.

• Candou states its seed-stage approach plainly: “We provide the first institutional seed investment in the range of $500K to $1M.”
• The firm looks for “innovative technologies that are differentiated, solve a real problem and have a large addressable market.”
• Candou describes its portfolio focus as BASIC: B2B, AI, SaaS, IoT, and cloud infrastructure.
• Candou explicitly says it does not invest in life sciences, consumer products, B2C, or mobile apps.
• Akbarpour’s Candou bio says she supports startups focused on SaaS, AI, blockchain, and consumer internet.
• In her 2021 article on pitching, she wrote that Candou’s “sweet spot is B2B software,” and categorized interesting products as automation products, tools / API / low-code / no-code / IP products, and whole integrated SaaS/PaaS/platform/marketplace products.