Robert Gaal is a self-taught, self-made Dutch entrepreneur and investor. Gaal is best known as the founder of a range of tech startups. He is also known for having a diverse skillset which is invaluable in the tech industry. Gaal currently serves as managing director of TQ, a curated tech hub which is part of the Google for Entrepreneurs network. He is also the founder of Cooper, a validated professional network due to be launched in 2019. 

Between 2005 and 2013, Robert Gaal founded and co-founded a range of tech startups in The Netherlands and the United States. Between 2012 and 2013 he co-founded New York-based Karma and served as CEO of the company. Karma is known as a simple and honest mobile provider. Prior to this Gaal co-founded Wakoopa, an Amsterdam-based company that provides cross-device behavioural data sourced directly from consumers. From 2006 to 2010 he was involved with The Roomware Project, an open-source framework he co-authored. Before this project Gaal founded BlueAce, one of the top weblogs on technology startups in The Netherlands.

Location

After completing his education at CSG De Lage Waard School in Papendrecth, Robert Gaal worked as a software engineer for leading Netherlands tech firms before launching his first business leading to founding and co-founding several technology startups around The Netherlands. In 2012 Gaal relocated to New York City in the United States where he co-founded Karma, a mobile network provider. He also worked as product manager for Google in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States for some years before returning to The Netherlands in 2016 where he took on the role of managing director of TQ, a tech hub. 

Remarkable Investments

As an angel investor active on Angel List, Robert Gaal has made a range of investments in tech startups including:

• Seed investment in 2016 into the Brooklyn-based financial tech company Fabric.
• Seed investment in 2015 into Framer, an Amsterdam-based development company.
• Series A investment funding in 2018 into Grove, a San Francisco-based financial tech company that offers personalised financial planning.
• Seed investment into Polarsteps in 2017. Polarsteps is an Amsterdam-based mobile tech company that developed a planning and tracking app geared for travel. 

Latest News

Fast Company Magazine featured Robert Gaal and other investors’ opinions on startups and apps they recommend. Venture Beat reported on the international expansion of Foursquare and how Robert Gaal and business partner Alper Cugun were instrumental in bringing the company to Amsterdam – its first European city. According to an article in NOS, Gaal was actively searching for investment opportunities in the field of affordable international mobile internet and was calling on young people with excellent internet ideas. The Verge published an article on Karma, one of the startups Gaal is involved in. It was reported that Karma rewards 4G users who share data with strangers by giving them free data for allowing strangers to use some of their data. Gaal was quoted as saying that they intend to create a simple way in which mobile data is consumed.