Betaworks

John Borthwick is founder, chief executive and managing partner, and has run Betaworks since 2008. He was previously senior vice president of technology and strategy at Time Warner, which acquired his earlier company, and before that chief executive of the photoblogging service Fotolog.

Jordan Crook is a partner and leads deals including Granola, Hopscotch Labs and Tato; she spent 12 years at TechCrunch, most recently as deputy editor, and studied English literature and philosophy at NYU. Jon Chin is operating partner and oversees fund financial operations for Betaworks Ventures. Analisa Svehaug, a director who joined in 2015, runs the Camp program alongside the investment team and manages the firm's office and event space. Lauren Olson joined in 2025 as fund operations manager across all three funds, arriving with seven years of venture experience at Madrona and Breakwater Ventures.

Betaworks began in 2008 as a New York startup studio rather than a fund, building and incubating companies including Bitly, Giphy, Chartbeat, Dots, TweetDeck and Instapaper before formalizing an outside investment vehicle. It launched the Betaworks Camp accelerator in 2016, running thematic cohorts around emerging platforms, and raised its first venture fund the same year at $48 million.

Fund II followed in 2020 at $46 million. Betaworks Ventures III closed in July 2025 at $66 million, the firm's largest vehicle to date, taking total committed capital across the three funds to roughly $160 million. Fund III is targeted at early-stage artificial intelligence companies, with a stated plan of at least 25 pre-seed and seed investments plus at least 50 smaller checks deployed through Camp cohorts. The structure keeps Betaworks unusual among seed managers: a studio, an accelerator and a fund operating from the same Meatpacking District building, with Camp serving as proprietary deal flow into the fund.