The Simpsons

Founder puts his own $1M angel windfall into the dying company, behind $10M of debt

TinyCo's $100K MoPub investment turned into $1M when Twitter acquired it. With investors refusing more money, Ali put that $1M into his own failing company — junior to $10M of SVB debt — and a16z matched it dollar-for-dollar.

“I had invested in this company called MoPub, started by this guy Jim Payne, and I'd invested $100,000 into it. It got acquired by Twitter and that $100,000 turned into $1 million. So I said, okay, I just made this $1 million. I'm going to go put that money into the company. And that million dollars is going to be behind the $10 million of debt that we've got from Silicon Valley Bank.”