We get it
We’ve built and exited companies, raised nearly $1B as founders, and worked in venture previously.
We’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of the venture-backed startup rollercoaster, and with Coalition, we’re determined to turn our battle scars into actionable wisdom to help shape the ecosystem we love. As fellow founders and operators, we see the world from a different angle than traditional investors, which means we play a different role on your cap table.
We operate with deep empathy and radical pragmatism: we’re here equally for your moments of doubt and your most tactical questions.
"Ash, Toyin and the Coalition Operator team are some of the best investor partners I've worked with. As experienced operators and leaders themselves, they have a keen sense of what is most helpful and valuable for founders and early stage companies and are more than happy to roll up their sleeves and help in any way necessary. Their guidance is always on point and their network is phenomenal; every introduction they've made has been extremely high yield.”
"Coalition is all killer no filler, the highest leverage per dollar investor on our entire cap table. Coalition has forged a new model in venture that actually works — nearly impossible to do. They were at the very top of my ideal investor list for Pool and helped us land one of our dream angel investors. Ashley and Jackie have been incredible advocates and supporters along the way and I recommend Coalition to every founder I know."
"Working with Coalition is like having the highest caliber recruiter, product strategist and consiglieri right by your side. The phrase 'in my experience' is a rare, and invaluable preface to my and other founder's questions."
“I’ve been on both the investor and founder sides of the table, and can say confidently that Ashley and the Coalition team are a rarity. They go out of their way to support founders, post-investment, in an industry where that’s not the norm.”
Meet our team
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Ashley Mayer
Co-founder and full-time GP
Ashley is our full-time leader at Coalition. Her first career chapter was in communications, where she helped visionary founders craft stories that shaped their companies’ trajectories. She led comms at Box from early days through IPO, was the first marketing partner at Social Capital, and helped scale Glossier from a cult beauty brand to a household name.
Building a startup is all about crafting and selling a story about what the future should be. Ashley backs founders across categories, and partners with them to make sure their stories reach and resonate with their most important audiences.
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Toyin Ajayi
Co-founder and part-time GP
Alongside her work at Coalition, Toyin is the co-founder and CEO of Cityblock Health, a multibillion-dollar company delivering high-quality care to the most marginalized populations. She’s a physician by training, and has spent her career building solutions for people who’ve been left behind by the U.S. healthcare system.
Toyin shares her hard-won insights on building in regulated industries and scaling complex teams and businesses. She’s especially helpful to founders navigating healthcare, education, and all things tech-enabled services.
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Lindsay Ullman
Co-founder and part-time GP
Lindsay has built and backed companies from every angle—as a founder, investor, buyer, incubator, and product leader. She started Umbrella, a community marketplace for seniors (acquired by IAC), and now leads product for Angi. Before that, she was a partner at GV and a company builder at Sidewalk Labs.
Lindsay is the ultimate dealmaker and negotiator. She works closely with Coalition founders on fundraising, product strategy, and loves nothing more than helping them puzzle through a tough business decision.
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Jaclyn Rice Nelson
Co-founder and part-time GP
Jaclyn is the co-founder and CEO of Tribe AI, a startup powering the enterprise AI wave. Jaclyn has a multi-faceted view of the AI platform shift: the build versus buy decisions of her enterprise customers, the speed of innovation at the top AI platforms Tribe builds on; and the interests of Tribe’s network of 600+ top AI engineers.
In addition to backing AI startups at Coalition, she helps founders across categories think through how to leverage AI to build better products, power their companies, and rethink team building.