Rafael Corrales

Rafael Corrales is the San Francisco-based Founder of Background Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm he established in January 2018 to back consumer internet and SaaS startups. Before this role, he served as a General Partner at CRV from 2013 to 2017 and operated as a Founding Investor and Board Member at Vercel. His operational background includes acting as CEO of LearnBoost from 2010 until its successful acquisition by WordPress parent Automattic in 2013, alongside a three-year tenure advising Instacart. Corrales holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS from the Georgia Institute of Technology, having directed early-stage capital into prominent technology enterprises like Webflow and Clearbit. Drawing on fifteen years of combined operational and investment experience, he focuses on backing software-enabled businesses that have the strong potential for fundamental industry impact.