Brian O’Malley

General Partner, Forerunner Ventures

Brian O’Malley is a General Partner at Forerunner Ventures. He was most recently a Partner on Accel Partners’ early stage team. Previously Brian led Battery’s Seed & Early Stage practices, while focusing on investments in eCommerce, online marketplaces and internet applications. During his tenure at Battery, he has invested in Bazaarvoice (NASDAQ: BV), Brightedge, Coupa, Duetto, H.BLOOM, Insitu (acquired by Boeing), J. Hilburn, Joor, HotelTonight, Loosecubes, Peerflix (acquired by Live Universe), Serena & Lily, Skullcandy (NASDAQ: SKUL), Sociable Labs, Sosh, Sprig, TradeKing, Viddy (acquired by Fullscreen Media) and World Golf Tour. He prides himself on hustling to find unique companies and new markets before other investors recognize the opportunity. Prior to Battery, Brian spent several years at Bowstreet, Inc. (acquired by NYSE: IBM), as Director of West Coast Technical Sales and earlier as the company’s Technical Evangelist preaching the future of web service-based APIs. Earlier in his career, Brian assisted founding teams at Matrics, Inc. (acquired by NYSE: MOT) and Compoze Software (acquired by NASDAQ: ORCL) with go-to-market strategy and initial fundraising activities. He started his career as a web developer for Motorola Computer Group while only a sophomore in college. Brian has guest lectured on entrepreneurship at several top universities, including Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Stanford, UVA and Penn. He graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a Dual Concentration in Entrepreneurial Finance and Management. Brian has been named to Forbes’ Midas List VC Draft: Hot Prospects, as well as to AlwaysOn’s Power Players in Mobile and Power Players in The Cloud lists.

Articles by Brian O’Malley

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Balancing self-care and startup pressure as a founder

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies

In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends

Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI Automation for Startup Operations

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations

In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...

New York Tech Week Mucker Sessions Recap

2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions

Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...

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