Kelly Perdew

Co-Founder & Managing General Partner

Kelly has been investing in leading U.S. startups since 2004, including globally recognized unicorns like LinkedIn, Pandora, Slack, SpaceX, and ID.me.

As a serial founder who has served in operating roles at 10 early-stage companies, Kelly works directly with the founders he backs to help them achieve successful exits. His board and advisory roles have included Ustream (acquired by IBM), Bitium (acquired by Google), eteamz (acquired by Activision), Harvest.ai (acquired by Amazon), Scopely (acquired by Savvy Games Group), and Gretel (acquired by Nvidia).

Kelly is an honor graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served as an Army Intelligence Officer, where he completed elite Army programs: Ranger School and Airborne Training. After leaving military service, he earned joint MBA and JD degrees from UCLA.

In 2004, Kelly won Season 2 of NBC's hit reality show The Apprentice. He is a published author and nationally recognized speaker on leadership, technology, and entrepreneurship.

What founders are saying…

Blake Hall
Blake Hall

Blake Hall

ID.me | Co-founder & CEO

I wouldn’t be where I am without Kelly Perdew.

“Kelly changed my life by giving me a skillset. He was in the foxhole with me and kept me going through some of my darkest days.”
Blake Hall

Blake Hall

ID.me | Co-founder & CEO

Scott Painter
Scott Painter
Scott Painter

Scott Painter

TrueCar | Founder, CEO & CTO

Autonomy | Founder & CEO

Kelly has always been consistently leaning in, interested, and really desiring to help.

That’s important because there are so many places to go for capital, but money isn’t just money. If you've been in the military or you grew up in a military family or you understand that value system, Moonshots is going to be a great place to start because you’ll be starting from the same foundation.
Scott Painter
Scott Painter

Scott Painter

TrueCar | Founder, CEO & CTO

Autonomy | Founder & CEO

Scott Kriz
Scott Kriz
Scott Kriz

Scott Kriz

SGNL (acq. by Crowdstrike) | Co-founder & CEO

Bitium (acq. by Google Cloud) | Co-founder & CEO

Kelly adds tremendous value strategically and operationally.

He operates with the passion drive of a founder, not a typical investor. I personally know many founders who have been backed by Kelly in the past and the thing that stands out is not only his ability to add value, but his ability to scale this across all of his investments simultaneously.
Scott Kriz
Scott Kriz

Scott Kriz

SGNL (acq. by Crowdstrike) | Co-founder & CEO

Bitium (acq. by Google Cloud) | Co-founder & CEO

Mark Jeffrey
Mark Jeffrey

Mark Jeffrey

Stillcore Capital | Partner

There are extremely interesting opportunities that others overlook that Kelly finds his way to.

Kelly’s got that military background and has more unusual access to things than other investors and the other venture capitalists.
Mark Jeffrey

Mark Jeffrey

Stillcore Capital | Partner