Founders of Axosoft dedicate $10 million to fund 100 Arizona startups
Hamid Shojaee, the founder of Axosoft and PureChat, is letting his entrepreneurial colors show once again. This time he’s not starting a software company, but shifting his focus towards the Arizona tech ecosystem as a whole. He announced his three-pronged plan in a YouTube video posted earlier this week.
Hamid and his wife, Lawdan Shojaee, former CEO of Axosoft and current COO at GitKraken, are investing $10 million into 100 Arizona startups through their group AZ Disruptors.
Shojaee said his wife is keen on bringing more women into technology and they aim to do that with this fund. AZ Disruptors is accepting pitches on its website, both for startups seeking funding and other investors looking to get involved. He said his email has been “blowing up” since the release of the video.
Arizona is short on people willing to lose money in startups, according to Shojaee, especially compared to places like Silicon Valley where the tight competition forces investors to look at earlier stage companies.
“Even if we lose this $10 million, that’s OK. It was a risk worth taking to see if we can make a dent in that problem.”
“If we can continue that momentum, and five years from now we can say, ‘look at all these companies that have come about as a result of our activities,’ and we’ve been able to seed some of them early, get them off the ground on the earliest stages, get them to their next level, that would be a huge sign of success.”
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