Early-stage investor · Washington, DC

Software engineer turned early-stage investor.

Sourcing, diligence, and investment memos. Years of building product at scale at Meta, now spent finding and pressure-testing the founders other people overlook.

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Chanel Johnson

I'm highly skilled at communicating and storytelling, and I do it by connecting with people to understand their underlying motivations.

I don't need a prestigious title, and I'm not looking for a two-year stop on the way to a bigger logo. I want to plant roots on a team and compound there.

Point me at deal sourcing and investment memos as an analyst or associate, or put me on a small team where I wear a lot of hats — I've done the version of that job where you're the first hire and the infrastructure doesn't exist yet.

I'm generalist by temperament and genuinely open across sectors. Early stage is where I do my best work; I'm open to later stage too.

  • 25+

    companies evaluated, 3 advanced to diligence

  • Eight Sleep

    company and market diligence led

  • 47%

    faster development workflows built at Meta

  • 99.9%+

    reliability maintained for Facebook iOS

  • 4

    engineers mentored

Venture experience

Already in the work

Rarebreed Ventures

Remote · Oct 2025 – Present

Venture Fellow

  • Sources and evaluates promising pre-seed startups, especially founders operating outside traditional technology hubs and overlooked networks.
  • Supports investment research and due diligence by analyzing markets, business models, customer traction, and founding teams.

The Council

Remote · May 2025 – Present

Venture Scout / Deal Sourcer

  • Sources and screens early-stage CPG, consumer, healthcare, and fintech deals, including founder outreach and preliminary due diligence.
  • Evaluated 25+ companies, with 3 advancing to due diligence review.

Girl Math Capital

Remote · Aug 2025 – Present

Member → Associate Deal Lead

  • Participates in founder pitch meetings, evaluates investment opportunities, and contributes perspective to deal discussions.
  • Supported deal leads in managing member questions and co-leading diligence calls through the investment-review process.
  • Conducted due diligence on Eight Sleep, assessing the company, market opportunity, and key investment considerations.

Venture Cooperative (Laconia)

Remote · Feb 2026 – Present

Venture Fellow · Cohort 26

  • Participates in Laconia's investment processes, collaborates on due diligence, and works alongside early-stage founders.
  • A free, inclusive program making a fund's processes and learnings accessible to the next generation of early-stage investors.

VC University (NVCA / Venture Capital Institute)

Remote · Feb 2026 – Present

Full Tuition Scholarship Recipient, Venture Forward

  • Completed an intensive venture capital fundamentals program covering fund formation, deal terms, and portfolio management.

GoingVC

Present

Member · Cohort 19

  • Part of GoingVC's Cohort 19, training and building alongside emerging investors.

Strengths

What I bring to the table

  • Public Speaking

    Comes naturally.

  • Connector

    Good at talking to others.

  • Empathy

    Reads the room and the person in it.

  • Adaptable

    Learn as I go.

  • Context Switching

    Many threads, held at once.

  • Resilience

    Persistent and determined.

  • Deal Flow + Pattern Recognition

    Lean into intuition.

  • Smart + Up for a Challenge

    Pulled toward the hard version.

  • Thoughtful and Aware

    Considered, not reactive.

  • Decomposition

    Process steps, then break them into smaller steps.

Operating & engineering

Where the instincts come from

The Madison of Washington, DC

Washington, DC · Apr 2026 – Present

Director of Special Events (Volunteer)

  • Leads strategy and execution for three 200+ attendee signature events, owning event P&Ls, vendor negotiations, sponsorship coordination, ticket sales, and a cross-functional team.

St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School

Alexandria, VA · Oct 2025 – Present

Upper School Computer Science Teacher & Technology Integrator

  • Leads the MERIT team, a faculty group that designs and delivers digital citizenship curriculum across the school.

Mandy (Consumer Tech Startup)

Brooklyn, NY (Remote) · Jun – Sep 2025

Frontend Engineer · First technical hire

  • Joined as the first technical hire, building and shipping product independently with minimal oversight or existing infrastructure.
  • Owned the full lifecycle of an AI-powered planning assistant from concept to launch.

Meta

Remote · Aug 2020 – Jan 2025

Senior Software Engineer

  • Designed a performance-monitoring system adopted across Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, protecting the experience of billions of users.
  • Built automation that accelerated development workflows by 47% and eliminated repetitive engineering processes.
  • Mentored four engineers and maintained 99.9%+ reliability for Facebook's iOS application.

Brown University — B.A. Computer Science, Class of 2020 · Providence, RI

Writing

Investment memos & notes

Memos in progress. These slots are placeholders until published pieces go live.

  • Memo 1

    [Title to come]

    Placeholder — company, thesis, and link to be added.

  • Memo 2

    [Title to come]

    Placeholder — company, thesis, and link to be added.

  • Memo 3

    [Title to come]

    Placeholder — company, thesis, and link to be added.

Skills

Toolkit

Investing

  • Startup Due Diligence
  • Deal Sourcing
  • Market Sizing
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Founder & Pitch Evaluation
  • Investment Research
  • Pre-Seed and Seed Investing

Technical

  • Technical Product Diligence
  • Software Engineering
  • AI Product Development
  • System Design
  • Data Analysis

Tools

  • Microsoft Excel
  • Google Sheets
  • PowerPoint
  • Google Slides
  • Claude Code
  • GitHub Copilot / Codex
  • Cursor