Karl Alomar

Karl Alomar is managing partner of M13, an early-stage venture firm. He holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BEng in electrical and electronic engineering from Imperial College London, according to his TechCrunch author page.

Co-Founding a Company at 24

After graduating he moved to California and spent a few years at a large engineering firm, he told Tech:NYC. At 24 he co-founded his first technology company with three co-founders, and it was acquired in 2000. To pay the bills early on, he and his partner put on events in Los Angeles, California, including at the Masonic Lodge on Hollywood Boulevard, he told M13.

Six Years Scaling DigitalOcean

He later co-founded China Export Finance and was its CEO until its acquisition in 2010. As COO of DigitalOcean he helped scale the business from its first product to an IPO on the NYSE, and has been a partner at M13 since 2019, according to M13.

Rejecting Hubris and Hype

Alomar has called hubris "a huge red flag right out of the gate," he told M13. "When investing, you have to let the founder lead the storyline, and either you believe in it or you don't," he said.

Changing His Mind on Baselayer

Alomar met Baselayer co-founder Jonathan Awad about a year before M13 led the company's $35 million Series A, he told Crunchbase News. "The business did not feel like a business of the future," he admitted. His view changed as companies began exploring payments made by AI agents. "Every agent ultimately is going to have to be tied to something real, and they understand the real world," he said.