Hi, I’m Jacob Brody. I'm the Founder and Managing Partner at Helpful Networks, a venture studio and consultancy. We incubate our own companies and work with corporate and private equity clients to build and grow businesses. I invest in startups as a venture advisor to Expanding Capital and Vast Ventures, as well as personally through Helpful Capital and my AngelList Syndicate.

I previously Co-Founded Benny, a freelancer back-office and insurance startup backed by Google Ventures. Before that I was a Founding Partner at MESA Ventures, the strategic seed/early stage venture arm of the investment bank MESA (acq. by Houlihan Lokey). Across my career as a venture capitalist and angel investor I've backed 30+ companies in consumer, health, adtech, fintech, insurance, hardware, and enterprise software. Portfolio investments include Clover Health, MParticle, Vence, Brand Commerce, Triple Lift, Tala, Fitstar (acquired by Fitbit), Abra, Grand St (acquired by Etsy), Gem, Seedling and Nativo.

In a previous life I was a reporter at Venturebeat and founded a non-profit helping entrepreneurs. I'm a born and bred New Yorker, just like my wife Lauren and baby boy Bowie.