Two People, One Decision
NFDG operated as a partnership of two operators rather than a fund with an investment process. Founders got a decision from the people who would actually help them, usually within a week.
Nat Friedman
AngelNat Friedman ran GitHub as CEO through the Copilot era, then invested as one half of NFDG alongside Daniel Gross. The two-person partnership wrote some of the earliest cheques into voice, image, music and coding AI companies. Its disclosed positions include ElevenLabs, Perplexity, Suno, Cursor and Safe Superintelligence.
Nat Friedman
Individual investor
- Role
- Investor, NFDG; ex-CEO of GitHub
- Background
- Xamarin co-founder; GitHub CEO 2018–2021
- Partner
- Daniel Gross
- Stage
- Seed and Series A
How NFDG Approaches AI Investing
Product Taste Over Market Maps
The pattern across ElevenLabs, Suno and Cursor is the same: a product good enough that users adopt it before any enterprise sales motion exists.
Developer Tooling as Home Turf
Having shipped Copilot at GitHub, Friedman moved early on AI coding tools and on the inference and infrastructure layer they depend on.
Access to Research Labs
The pair's credibility with researchers — and Gross's role as co-founder of Safe Superintelligence — gave them access to frontier labs that were not raising broadly.
In depth
In mid-2025 Friedman joined Meta's new Superintelligence Labs as VP of Product & Applied Research, co-leading the unit with chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, after which NFDG stopped making new investments. He is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
AI Portfolio
Disclosed NFDG investments across generative media, AI coding tools, search and frontier research labs.
ElevenLabsVoice AIText-to-speech and voice cloning models that became the default voice layer for AI products.
PerplexityAI SearchAI answer engine; one of the partnership's best-known early positions.
SunoMusic GenerationGenerative music model producing full vocal tracks from text prompts.
CursorAI CodingAnysphere's AI code editor; Friedman joined its OpenAI Startup Fund-led seed round in October 2023, a direct extension of his GitHub Copilot thesis.
Character.AIConsumer AIConversational AI characters with heavy consumer engagement.
- Safe SuperintelligenceFrontier Research
Ilya Sutskever's research lab, co-founded by Daniel Gross, who led it as CEO until joining Meta in July 2025; NFDG took part in the lab's inaugural US$1B financing announced in September 2024.
FigmaDesign SoftwareDesign platform now shipping generative design features across its product.
Operating Background
Not investments — the companies he built and ran, which explain the access and the developer-tooling focus.
- GitHubDeveloper Platform
CEO from 2018 to 2021; launched Copilot, the first mass-market AI coding product.
- XamarinDeveloper Tools
Co-founder and CEO; cross-platform mobile development toolchain acquired by Microsoft in 2016.
Related Rounds
No rounds led by Nat Friedman are in the tracker yet. Deals will appear here as they are recorded.
Frequently asked questions
Why did NFDG stop making new investments?
Because both partners got absorbed: in mid-2025 Friedman joined Meta's Superintelligence Labs as VP of Product & Applied Research, co-leading the unit with chief AI officer Alexandr Wang, while Daniel Gross took its AI products division. A two-person partnership cannot persist once both people become operators — the positions below are the record of the partnership's active period.
Why is GitHub on this page if it isn't an investment?
Person pages separate roles from cheques. GitHub (CEO 2018–2021, through the Copilot launch) and Xamarin (sold to Microsoft in 2016) are operating background — the section exists because it explains both the developer-tooling focus and the credibility with researchers that shaped NFDG's access. The investments group is the track record; this group is its explanation.
What does the Cursor seed say about the Copilot thesis?
Continuity: having shipped Copilot at GitHub, Friedman joined Cursor's seed in October 2023 — a round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund — backing the AI-native editor wave within roughly two years of leaving. The pattern held across the book: voice (ElevenLabs), music (Suno), coding (Cursor) — products good enough to be adopted before any enterprise sales motion exists.
How early was NFDG on the generative-media winners?
Early enough to pre-date the institutional wave: ElevenLabs became the default voice layer and Suno the generative-music reference while NFDG was still active, and the growth money arrived later — Menlo led Suno's US$250M Series C at a US$2.45B valuation in November 2025. Angel conviction first, mega-funds following at re-priced rounds, is the partnership's signature sequencing.
How does Safe Superintelligence connect Friedman and Gross?
Through co-founding: Gross co-created SSI with Ilya Sutskever and led it as CEO until joining Meta in July 2025, and NFDG took part in the lab's inaugural US$1B financing announced in September 2024. Sequoia also holds an early equity position; a lab this closed effectively rationed access to its own founders' funds — which is exactly what NFDG was.