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Mike Maples, Jr.

Mike Maples, Jr.

Co-founding Partner·Floodgate

Menlo Park, CA
LinkedIn Bio source

Bio

Professional summary

Mike Maples, Jr. is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate, a firm positioning itself as an early believer in breakthrough founders. Floodgate’s official profile says he has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was named a Fortune Rising Star. Before investing full-time, he held founder/operator roles at Tivoli Systems and Motive Communications, both IPO companies that were later acquired. His listed investments include Twitter, Twitch, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition. Floodgate also describes his “Thunder Lizards” framing for rare disruptive startups and notes that he wrote Pattern Breakers and hosts the Pattern Breakers podcast.

Investment focus

Stage, sector, and overall fit

Stage

pre-seedseedvery early stage

Sector

AIenterpriseconsumerhealthcarefintechbreakthrough technology startups

Thesis

Very early-stage breakthrough technology startupsConsumer and B2B startupsAI, enterprise, healthcare, consumer, fintech, and other technology categories represented in Floodgate portfolio

Notable companies

Selected portfolio companies the partner has backed

TwitterTwitchClover HealthOktaOutreachCheggDemandforceApplied Intuition

How to approach

Framing and angles for outreach

Pitch framing

Best fit if the company has a non-obvious early insight that could become a category-defining breakthrough before metrics are obvious.

Partneralization hooks

  1. 1Reference the company’s “atomic egg” or category-creation insight rather than only traction metrics.
  2. 2Connect the pitch to Pattern Breakers-style lessons about exceptional startups.

Recent signals

What the partner has said or done recently

  • Floodgate profile highlights his book and podcast, Pattern Breakers, focused on lessons from high-performing startups.

Background

Career, education, and skills

Career history

  • FloodgateCo-founding PartnerPresent
  • Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent)Co-founder & CEOPrior
  • Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM)Co-founderPrior

Education

  • Stanford UniversityBS, Engineering
  • Harvard Business SchoolMBA, Business Administration

Skills

Seed InvestingCompany BuildingBoard GovernancePattern Recognition

Other partners at Floodgate

4 more profiles

View firm →
Ann Miura-Ko

Ann Miura-Ko

Co-founding Partner

Floodgate

Ann Miura-Ko is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate, a repeat Forbes Midas List investor, and a Stanford entrepreneurship lecturer known for backing highly technical early-stage companies.

AICompany buildingConsumerEarly-stage pre-seed/seedEnterpriseMVC/PMF
Iris Choi

Iris Choi

Partner

Floodgate

Iris Choi is a Partner at Floodgate who works with portfolio companies on corporate relationships, business development, and financings.

Broad tech sectorsCorporate relationshipsEarly-stage pre-seed/seedPortfolio company support
Mike Heller

Mike Heller

Partner

Floodgate

Mike Heller is a Partner at Floodgate. His official profile highlights operating experience at Dropbox and Clearbit, plus hands-on sales and product-market-fit advisory work with seed-stage startups.

Early-stage pre-seed/seed
Sam Beskind

Sam Beskind

Associate

Floodgate

Floodgate associate and Mike Maples Jr. chief of staff with climate and hard-tech founder research experience.

climate techearly-stage startupsfounder researchhard techsocial impact

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