The Founder
Marc Winn
Originator of the Ikigai Venn Diagram.
Marc Winn is a pattern recogniser. A spotter of outliers. A builder of communities and cultural signals. Someone drawn to the people and ideas that do not yet neatly fit the existing boxes.
He is perhaps best known as the originator of the Ikigai Venn Diagram — a framework that has reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide and fundamentally changed how a generation thinks about the intersection of purpose, passion, skill and value.
But Marc's work has always been about more than a single diagram. It has been about understanding what makes certain people and ideas spread. What gives some founders unusual resilience. What makes certain work feel alive.
He has spent his career at the intersection of purpose, change and systems — building communities, backing unconventional ideas, and recognising patterns that others miss.
Infectious.vc is the natural expression of everything Marc has learned about what makes founders truly powerful. It is built on the belief that when someone finds the work they are here to do — when care, capability and conviction meet — their energy becomes contagious.
What Marc brings.
Founder signal early
Recognising in a founder's energy and lived insight what conventional pattern-matching overlooks.
Human truth behind the company
Understanding the deeper reason a founder is building, and helping them protect it as the company grows.
Articulating the work
Helping founders tell the story of what they are building so the right people understand it quickly.
Network
Connecting founders to operators, advisors, communities and aligned investors who fit their specific work.
Founder support
Staying close through the messy reality of building. Backing the human, not just the company.
The Ikigai story.
In 2014, Marc published a blog post that combined the Japanese concept of ikigai with a Venn diagram exploring the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
The diagram spread. Not through marketing or promotion, but because it articulated something people already felt. It gave language to the search for meaningful work. It became one of the most widely shared frameworks for personal purpose in the world.
That experience taught Marc something fundamental about infectious ideas: they do not need to be pushed. They need to be true. When something resonates with how people actually feel, it spreads on its own.
This is the same principle behind Infectious.vc. The fund backs founders whose work resonates — because it comes from truth, lived experience, and genuine care.
Connect with Marc.
Fund I is forming
Whether you are a founder with a story or an investor who sees the shift.