Jim Scheinman

Founding Managing Partner, Maven Ventures & the guy who named Zoom

📍 Los Altos, California, United States🔄 Updated September 2026💼 9 investments📅 18 years investing🗓 Last invested May 2016𝕏 @upgrade_to_unlock
VC🌍 United States
9
Total investments
9
Early stage
0
Mid stage
0
Late stage
18y
Years active

Portfolio

9 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Investor and advisor
May 2016
Embark (Nasdaq: EMBK) is an autonomous vehicle company building software for carriers to enable autonomous trucks within their fleets. We’re on a mission to build a world where consumers pay less for the things they need, drivers stay close to the homes they cherish, and roads are safer for the people we love.
Board Observer & Investor
Apr 2014
Cruise is building the world’s most advanced self-driving vehicles. Since our 2013 founding in San Francisco, we have hired over 1,600 talented individuals and opened additional offices in greater Seattle, Pasadena, Phoenix and Munich. We have raised $10B from General Motors, Honda, Microsoft, SoftBank, T. Rowe Price, Walmart and others. Through our partnerships with General Motors and Honda, we are the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale, building all-electric, zero-emission, self-driving vehicles that will help save lives, reimagine cities, reduce carbon pollution, redefine time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for individuals who live in dense urban settings. If you are looking to play a part in making a positive impact in the world by advancing the revolutionary work of self-driving vehicles, join us. getcruise.com/careers.
First investor and advisor
Jan 2013
Designed for unlimited discovery and unmatched safety, Epic is the leading digital reading platform for kids. Reaching more than 50 million children in homes and classrooms, Epic fuels curiosity and reading confidence in kids to explore their interests and learn in a fun, safe, kid-friendly environment. Our award-winning service is built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books, audiobooks and videos from 250+ of the world’s best publishers including HarperCollins, Macmillan, Sesame Street, National Geographic Kids and Smithsonian. Epic provides free access to educators and is used by more than 2 million teachers in the classroom. The company was founded by Suren Markosian, founder of several successful technology startups, and Kevin Donahue, former YouTube, Google and Disney executive, with the support of top tier investors and veterans of the children’s publishing industry. It is part of the BYJU’S family of brands, working together to unlock a love of learning around the world. To learn more, visit getepic.com, or follow Epic! on Facebook and Twitter. To learn more about Epic, please visit www.getepic.com.
Investor & Advisor and formerly COO
Dec 2011
Tango is a social live-streaming app with over 400 million downloads worldwide. The home for creators around the world, Tango helps people unlock people’s creativity and push the live-streaming experience to the limit. With an all-in-one platform and digital economy, we are the premier destination for meeting new people, exploring live-streaming content, and discovering new creators & entertainment in real-time. Tango has global offices in Dubai, Kyiv, Limassol, Warsaw, and Tel Aviv.
Investor and Advisor
Oct 2011
Bring teams together, reimagine workspaces, engage new audiences, and delight your customers –– all on the Zoom AI-first work platform you know and love. 💙 Zoomies help people stay connected so they can get more done together. We set out on a mission to make video communications frictionless and secure by building the world’s best video product for the enterprise, but we didn’t stop there. With products like AI Companion, Team Chat, Contact Center, Phone, Events, Rooms, Webinar, Contact Center and more, we bring innovation to a wide variety of customers, from the conference room to the classroom, from doctor’s offices to financial institutions to government agencies, from global brands to small businesses. We do what we do because of our core value of Care: care for our community, our customers, our company, our teammates, and ourselves. Our global employees help our customers meet happier, communicate better, and create meaningful connections the world over. Zoomies are problem-solvers and self-starters, working hard to get results and moving quickly to design solutions with our customers and users in mind. Here, youll find room to grow with opportunities to stretch your skills and advance your career in a collaborative, growth-focused environment. Learn more about careers at Zoom by visiting our careers site: https://careers.zoom.us/home
Investor and Advisor
2011
Katango’s mission is to restore simplicity to your social life by taming the tsunami caused by the social network era. Katango’s approach borrows a chapter from history. Back in the late 90’s, Yahoo’s directory-style curation of the World Wide Web didn’t scale with the explosion of websites. Two guys from Stanford brought algorithms into the equation with Google and the rest is history. The social web is still in the manual phase, which isn’t scaling with the explosion of our social graphs. Katango aims to bring the social web into the algorithmic phase to improve our everyday online social experiences.
Investor & Advisor and formerly COO
Sep 2009
Check Inc. (now Mint Bills) is a free app that stays on top of your bills & money for you - so that there's less work, less worrying, and more time for you. Check was acquired by Intuit in June 2014 for 360M. Product Information: The Check app pays your bills on time so you never stress about missing a bill again – we’ll remember so you don’t have to. Get reminders when bills are due, then pay them on the spot or schedule the payment for later. No stamps, no phone calls, no hassle. Check keeps it all together in once central place. With multiple credit cards, bank accounts, and numerous bills to keep track of, it’s too easy to overdraft, miss a payment or exceed credit limits. With our app, you never have to worry because you’ll always know exactly where you stand. How our app keeps your bills & money in check: • Get reminders when bills are due • Pay on the spot and schedule bill payments for free • Conveniently pay bills with a bank account or credit card* • See all your bills & accounts in one centralized place • Receive alerts when funds are low or credit limits are near
Angel Investor & Mentor Capitalist
Nov 2008
Maven backs bold founders with a vision worth fighting for. Since our founding in 2013, Maven has achieved 3 IPOs, 7 acquisitions, and 7 unicorns across roughly 50 investments. From our earliest days, we’ve always maintained the same successful, highly-concentrated strategy, with a small team of investors building and supporting a select portfolio of consumer software startups. Notable Maven investments include: Zoom (IPO “ZM”), Cruise (acquired by GM), Embark (SPAC merger with NGAB), Epic (acquired by BYJUS), and Wealthfront (acquired by UBS).
Investor & Advisor
Jan 2008
Jambool operates Social Gold, a leading virtual currency and payments platform for social games and applications. The platform enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an unparalleled, in-app payments experience to their users, and to optimize their virtual economy using robust analytics. Some of the largest social applications use Social Gold, but its easy-to-integrate APIs allow even the smallest applications to launch a virtual economy in a matter of hours. Jambool was founded by Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein, both Amazon.com veterans, and has offices in San Francisco and Seattle. For more information, please visit http://www.jambool.com.
Experience · 12 entries
All (12)
Investments (9)
Board (1)
2016
Investor and advisor
May 2016
Embark (Nasdaq: EMBK) is an autonomous vehicle company building software for carriers to enable autonomous trucks within their fleets. We’re on a mission to build a world where consumers pay less for the things they need, drivers stay close to the homes they cherish, and roads are safer for the people we love.
2014
Board Observer & Investor
Apr 2014
Cruise is building the world’s most advanced self-driving vehicles. Since our 2013 founding in San Francisco, we have hired over 1,600 talented individuals and opened additional offices in greater Seattle, Pasadena, Phoenix and Munich. We have raised $10B from General Motors, Honda, Microsoft, SoftBank, T. Rowe Price, Walmart and others. Through our partnerships with General Motors and Honda, we are the only self-driving company with fully integrated manufacturing at scale, building all-electric, zero-emission, self-driving vehicles that will help save lives, reimagine cities, reduce carbon pollution, redefine time in transit, and restore freedom of movement for individuals who live in dense urban settings. If you are looking to play a part in making a positive impact in the world by advancing the revolutionary work of self-driving vehicles, join us. getcruise.com/careers.
2013
Founding Managing Partner
Jan 2013
Maven backs bold founders with a vision worth fighting for. Since our founding in 2013, Maven has achieved 3 IPOs, 7 acquisitions, and 7 unicorns across roughly 50 investments. From our earliest days, we’ve always maintained the same successful, highly-concentrated strategy, with a small team of investors building and supporting a select portfolio of consumer software startups. Notable Maven investments include: Zoom (IPO “ZM”), Cruise (acquired by GM), Embark (SPAC merger with NGAB), Epic (acquired by BYJUS), and Wealthfront (acquired by UBS).
First investor and advisor
Jan 2013
Designed for unlimited discovery and unmatched safety, Epic is the leading digital reading platform for kids. Reaching more than 50 million children in homes and classrooms, Epic fuels curiosity and reading confidence in kids to explore their interests and learn in a fun, safe, kid-friendly environment. Our award-winning service is built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books, audiobooks and videos from 250+ of the world’s best publishers including HarperCollins, Macmillan, Sesame Street, National Geographic Kids and Smithsonian. Epic provides free access to educators and is used by more than 2 million teachers in the classroom. The company was founded by Suren Markosian, founder of several successful technology startups, and Kevin Donahue, former YouTube, Google and Disney executive, with the support of top tier investors and veterans of the children’s publishing industry. It is part of the BYJU’S family of brands, working together to unlock a love of learning around the world. To learn more, visit getepic.com, or follow Epic! on Facebook and Twitter. To learn more about Epic, please visit www.getepic.com.
2011
Investor & Advisor and formerly COO
Dec 2011
Tango is a social live-streaming app with over 400 million downloads worldwide. The home for creators around the world, Tango helps people unlock people’s creativity and push the live-streaming experience to the limit. With an all-in-one platform and digital economy, we are the premier destination for meeting new people, exploring live-streaming content, and discovering new creators & entertainment in real-time. Tango has global offices in Dubai, Kyiv, Limassol, Warsaw, and Tel Aviv.
Show all 12 entries ↓
Investment activity
2008–2016 · 9 investments
200822009120113201312014120161
Recent (last 2 years)Earlier