K9 Ventures is a technology-focused pre-seed fund that aims to be the first institutional capital into Bay Area companies led by technical founders. It invests $250K–$750K initially, prefers to lead priced rounds and take a board seat, and follows on in later rounds for existing portfolio companies.
Stage focus
Lead / follow
Check size
Ownership target
Generalist / Specialist
Generalist
Does not invest in
We want companies where the customers pay for using the product or service directly. In other words, “I deliver value to you, you pay me.” We don’t like three-way business models as at the stage we invest it’s impossible to tell a company will become the next Google or Facebook. As a corollary, we don’t invest in companies built on media, content, advertising. We typically only consider companies where the founding team is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is not a function of where K9 is located, but because we believe that there is something that happens in Silicon Valley, which cannot be easily replicated in other geographies. We welcome working with remote or distributed teams (a change in our thinking), but absolutely will not consider companies that plan to outsource the development of their core technology/product.
Investing team
Manu KumarFounder, Chief Firestarter
How to reach them
We prefer that you reach us through a referral from a trusted connection who can vouch for you.