Todd Gitlin
Managing Partner
at Safire Partners & Unmatched Ventures
Executive search and venture investing. We partner with emerging-stage companies — typically post-seed, taking on executive searches and investing at Series A/B. We offer discounted fees in exchange for warrants or discounted pro rata rights in the next round, and treat search as a form of diligence. We will work with later stage as well, but likely won’t invest.
Safire Partners (www.safirepartners.com) was founded in 2006, has a team of 30+ people and takes on ~200 VP+ searches per year for software, AI, healthtech, fintech, and consumer apps.
Unmtached (www.umv.vc) was founded in 2025 with the former Head of Talent @ SpaceX as a recruiting and investing platform built for hardware companies with a focus on aerospace, defense, robotics, and energy.
Articles by Todd Gitlin
How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...
7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself
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
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
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
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,...