- Tina Hoang-To and Ben Herman quit their jobs to start Kin Ventures and started fundraising in November.
- Since then, Kin Ventures has doubled its initial $50 million fund goal due to investor interest.
- The founders credit the interest to Kin Ventures’ recruiting resources for startups.
Tina Hoang-To, a former partner at Obvious Ventures, has decided to strike out on her own and start a new fund in Seattle called Kin Ventures.
Hoang-To and her cofounder, Ben Herman, founder and CEO of the diversity recruiting platform Canvas, got so much investor interest that they decided to increase the fund’s size from $50 million to $100 million.
Kin Ventures is on track to meet that goal by January, after just starting its fundraising efforts in November.
Hoang-To says that despite choosing the worst time of year to raise a fund — around the holidays, when many potential investors are usually not available to pitch — the fact that the fund is getting so much interest is a testament to their strategy.
A key approach has been to highlight what the firm offers to help startups succeed beyond just capital. That includes help with hiring from GT Partners, a recruitment firm founded by Herman that will operate as a sister agency, connecting Kin Ventures’ portfolio companies to over 1,200 engineering candidates from companies like Meta, Alphabet,
Netflix
and more.
“This gives us a leg up when we’re trying to get allocation for a lot of these competitive deals,” Hoang-To said.
Offering recruitment efforts to early-stage startups is important because they typically do not have the bandwidth to reach top talent. On top of that, setting the tone for a startup’s first hire is key to establishing success for employees to come as the company grows, Hoang-To said.
The fund’s current investor base includes “well-known angel investors, solo VCs, founders, operators and high net worth individuals” like Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital; Lachy Groom, previous head of issuing at Stripe; and David Sacks, cofounder of Craft Ventures.
Hoang-To and Herman plan to focus Kin Ventures’ investments on enterprise software, digital health and consumer technology startups fundraising at the Series A and Series B stages.
The cofounders’ decision to leave their respective roles to focus solely on building Kin Ventures was another fact that really resonated with interested limited partners and showed their commitment.
Prior to launching their firm, Hoang-To was a partner at Obvious Ventures and Herman was leading his company, Canvas. The two left their positions four days apart.
“I was ready to launch a fund that catered toward this generation’s founders. Last year, I realized that emerging founders care less about establishment or brand. They care more about if an investor will roll up their sleeves to help them grow the company,” Hoang-To told Insider.
The two Kin Ventures founders have ample venture investing experience between them.
Hoang-To has six years of investing experience, and also founded Wedding Spot, an online marketplace that connected engaged couples to venues. She found that her experience blended seamlessly with Herman’s, who has been an
angel investor
for a few years on top of running Canvas.
“I’ve seen both sides of the coin. I can advise as an investor, but also as an operator who has gone through all the challenges founders have before,” Hoang-To said.
After finalizing this initial fund in January, Hoang-To and Herman plan to continue to raise additional funds.
“We feel no pressure to start deploying capital” she said.”We want to make sure that we’re first setting ourselves up for success by carefully choosing to invest in the best companies and category winners.”
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