Number of Portfolio Companies 16
Number of Exits 
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  • Primary Job Title Founder and CEO
  • Primary Organization 
    Nearby
  • Investor Type  Investment Partner, Individual/Angel
  • Investor Stage  Seed
  • Number of Exits 

April Underwood is the Founder and CEO of Nearby. She's also Slack’s former head of platform who just launched its App Directory and Slack Fund, has leveled up to become the startup’s VP of Product. Underwood joined Slack in June after nearly five years at Twitter where she was a Director of Product.

Putting the head of platform in charge of

the entire product shows Slack’s commitment to making outside developers core to the workplace chat app‘s experience. With Underwood’s guidance, Slack’s product could seamlessly expand to handle the niche needs of any business.

Underwood previously interned at Apple and 3M, and has done stints at Deloitte, Intel, Travelocity, and WeatherBill. She managed content acquisition and monetization for Google’s core products as a Senior Partner Technology manager from 2007 to 2009. This year she co-launched the #Angels fund as a founding partner.

At Twitter Underwood had a prolific run from 2010 to 2015. She was a product manager on the first versions of the Tweet and Follow buttons, and worked on Twitter’s firehose and location feature. She built the Ads API and much of the advertiser experience, and ran all of Twitter’s search partnerships with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Oh, and she forged Twitter’s biz dev team as its Director.

Essentially, in an era when Twitter was otherwise notoriously stubborn about shipping, Underwood got things done.

Now she’ll have a massive amount of user engagement to sculpt with Slack. The company has 2 million active users, and Butterfield says “people spend on average 10 hours a day connected to Slack and a little over 2 hours of active usage.”

Number of Investments 16
April Underwood has made 16 investments. Their latest investment was Seed Round - Panobi on Aug 24, 2023, when Panobi raised
$5M
.
Announced Date  
Organization Name  
Lead Investor  
Funding Round  
Money Raised  
Aug 24, 2023
Panobi
Seed Round - Panobi
$5M
Nov 9, 2022
Equals
Series A - Equals
$16M
Oct 4, 2022
Humaans
Series A - Humaans
$15M
Jun 1, 2021
Kudos
Seed Round - Kudos
$2.4M
Mar 9, 2021
Daily.co
Series A - Daily.co
$15M
Jan 28, 2021
Gowalla
Seed Round - Gowalla
$4M
Dec 9, 2020
twine
Seed Round - twine
Oct 14, 2020
Balsa
No
Seed Round - Balsa
Nov 6, 2019
Digits
Series A - Digits
$10.5M
Oct 30, 2019
Oliver Space
No
Seed Round - Oliver Space
$6.8M
Number of Partner Investments 2
Announced Date  
Organization Name  
Investor Name  
Lead Investor  
Funding Round  
Money Raised  
Aug 11, 2020
Compaas
#Angels
No
Seed Round - Compaas
$4.3M
Jun 27, 2018
Compaas
#Angels
Seed Round - Compaas
$1.1M
Number of Exits 
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April Underwood has exits. Their most notable exits are Rival and Kit.
  • Rival Rival is a technology company building a platform for live events.
  • Kit Kit is an online seller of consumer products.
Number of Current Jobs 2
Number of Past Jobs 5
April Underwood has 2 current jobs as Founder and CEO at Nearby and Founding Partner at #Angels. Additionally, April Underwood has had 5 past jobs including Chief Product Officer at Slack.
Organization Name  
Title At Company  
Start Date  
End Date  
Slack
Chief Product OfficerMar 2018Feb 2019
Slack
VP of ProductDec 21, 20152018
Slack
Head of PlatformJul 6, 2015Dec 21, 2015
Google
Senior Partner Technology Manager
X (formerly Twitter)
Director of ProductApr 19, 2010
Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 4
April Underwood holds 4 board and advisor roles including Member of Board of Directors at Zillow Group, Board Advisor at Accompany, and Advisor at Hale Health.
April Underwood studied at The University of Texas at Austin and University of California Berkeley.
Number of News Articles 72
Funding RoundAug 24, 2023
Panobi raised $5,000,000 / Seed from April Underwood and 7 other investors
Funding RoundNov 9, 2022
Equals raised $16,000,000 / Series A from Andreessen Horowitz and 6 other investors
Funding RoundOct 4, 2022
Humaans raised $15,000,000 / Series A from April Underwood and 14 other investors
Funding RoundJun 1, 2021
Kudos raised $2,400,000 / Seed from Alpha Bridge Ventures and 8 other investors
Funding RoundMar 9, 2021
Daily.co raised $15,000,000 / Series A from April Underwood and 18 other investors
Funding RoundJan 28, 2021
Gowalla raised $4,000,000 / Seed from April Underwood and 14 other investors
Funding RoundDec 9, 2020
twine raised an undisclosed amount / Seed from April Underwood and 5 other investors
Funding RoundOct 14, 2020
Balsa raised an undisclosed amount / Seed from Andreessen Horowitz and 12 other investors