Felix Haas is a German designer, founder and investor working at the intersection of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence.

One of the first designers at Lovable, he now helps lead its design team and is a Scout investor at Sequoia Capital.

He believes that as AI makes software ever easier to build, what matters is deciding what deserves to be built, and building it with care.

Over the past decade, Felix has founded his own companies, shaped the products and brands of several of Europe’s most closely watched start-ups and built a design studio that was acquired in 2024.

He divides his time between London, Stockholm and New York.

Early life and education

Felix was born in 1998 in Düsseldorf, Germany. His parents ran a fashion business, and much of his childhood was spent around collections, galleries and art fairs, an environment he has credited with shaping his eye for form and detail.

He was inspired to build his own products while still at school, teaching himself to design and develop consumer apps. After studying business and management at the Technical University of Munich, he enrolled at Harvard University to study business and design. He left after one year to dedicate himself to building products.

Skip App

At eighteen, Felix founded Skip App, an instant photo-sharing application that allowed people to send pictures to those around them in the moment. He designed and built the product himself, raised a pre-seed round from angel investors in Munich and Los Angeles and relocated to Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The app launched on the App Store in early 2018, and the company closed later that year. He has described it as the catalyst for his career in design.

Mapify

In the Bay Area, Felix met Patrick Haede, co-founder of the travel platform Mapify, who would become one of his closest collaborators. He joined the company as its founding designer and later became head of design, shaping the product end to end.

Apple featured the app on the App Store on several occasions, and from 2019 it was preinstalled on devices in Apple Stores. Mapify raised more than $3 million in venture capital and was acquired by HomeToGo in 2021.

Gorillas and independent practice

Recognition of his work at Mapify led to a series of engagements with early-stage companies. In October 2020, at twenty-two, Felix became the first designer at Gorillas, the Berlin grocery-delivery start-up that grew into one of the fastest-growing companies in European history. Working directly with the founders, he designed its first app and laid the foundations of its brand.

He was also the first designer at Arive, and became known as a design partner for early-stage and hyper-growth companies.

Business Insider has described him as one of the most sought-after designers in the European start-up scene.

Creandum and Blossom Design

In January 2022, the venture capital firm Creandum appointed Felix one of its first Designers in Residence, a role in which he worked alongside the investment team and advised portfolio companies on product design and design hiring.

Later that year he co-founded Blossom Design, a product and brand studio, with Johanna Weber, enabling him to offer design partnership to companies at a larger scale. Sonic acquired the studio in September 2024.

Lovable

Following a period in Paris, where he advised and invested in start-ups, Felix met the founders of Lovable at an event in London and invested in the company.

In March 2025 he joined Lovable as one of its first designers. He now helps lead the design team at a company growing at a pace few in the history of software have matched.

Investing

Alongside his design work, he has backed more than 30 start-ups as an angel investor. Since 2025, he has served as a Scout for Sequoia Capital. With Patrick Haede, he co-hosts Quick Coffee, a podcast and investment vehicle.

Writing and speaking

Through his newsletter, he writes about interface design, artificial intelligence and start-ups. His essays include “Kind Products Win” (2025) and “Invisible Interfaces” (2026).

He speaks frequently at conferences and gives guest lectures around the world, with appearances at Slush, TechCrunch and Founders Forum.

Design philosophy and influences

Felix’s work is guided by reduction: the conviction that a design is complete when nothing more can be taken away. He has argued that as AI makes software increasingly easy to produce, the value of design lies less in execution than in intention, in deciding what deserves to be built and building it with care. He describes the task of designers as making AI “usable, trustworthy, and human”.

A recurring theme in his writing is kindness. Contrasting a decade of design devoted to efficiency, he has called for technology that is not only powerful but kind. He has also written about interfaces that recede, anticipating a future in which people interact with AI agents through conversation, and design shifts to moments of trust and approval.

Few people shaped Felix as much as his grandmother, Ilse Haas. The two were very close. An icon of fashion and design, she began collecting art early in life.

As a child, Felix went with her to openings, where she told him what she liked and taught him what to pay attention to. Her early influence helped him develop his own taste, which is reflected in his work today. He often cites her as a great inspiration and remains deeply grateful to her.