Aaref Hilaly, Angel Investor

Aaref Hilaly is a Partner at a San Francisco-based VC firm, where he invests early in technical founders building businesses in AI, cloud infrastructure, and fintech. Before becoming an investor, he founded CenterRun and Clearwell, gaining firsthand experience in scaling startups from inception to acquisition. At BCV, Aaref has backed high‑growth companies including Cognition, Krea.ai, Charta Health, and Decagon, serving on boards and helping founders with recruiting, messaging, and scaling. His approach reflects his own journey from rookie founder to confident CEO, now applied to mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs. As an angel investor, Aaref has supported ventures such as TruEra and Decagon, underscoring his commitment to transformative technologies in AI, healthcare, and enterprise software. His track record blends entrepreneurial grit with strategic investing, focused on helping founders turn bold ideas into enduring companies.