At a Glance
K9 Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, CA founded in 2008. Meet K9 Ventures We're a technology-focused micro VC fund based in Palo Alto, California. Learn The firm focuses on Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B+ investments across sectors including Aerospace & Defense, Other, Consumer, Fintech, Climate. The firm manages $25M in assets under management. Notable portfolio companies include Lyft, Twilio, Bracket Computing, AssemblyAI, Sift Science and Hipmunk. Pre-seed and seed stage investments in technology startups with a focus on being the first institutional investor.
“Pre-seed and seed stage investments in technology startups with a focus on being the first institutional investor.”
Manu Kumar established K9 Ventures in April 2009 to write the sub-$1 million first checks that Series A firms were skipping, and the fund sizes have stayed deliberately small across three vehicles. K9 Ventures, L.P. made its first sale in April 2009 and closed at $4.75 million, fully sold, according to the April 2010 amendment. K9 Ventures II filed in July 2012 at $40 million and reported the full amount sold on the initial filing, and K9 Ventures III did the same in August 2017 at $42 million. Total capital raised across the three funds is roughly $86.8 million, with Kumar as the sole named related person on every filing.
The deployment model is equally consistent: initial checks of $250,000 to $750,000 and a target of about $400,000, four to six new companies a year, leading rounds and taking board seats, and structuring investments as priced equity rounds on Series Seed documents rather than convertible notes or SAFEs. K9 aims to be the first institutional capital in, following only friends-and-family money.
K9 Ventures primarily invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B+ stages. This means they focus on companies that are at the earliest idea or prototype phase.
K9 Ventures is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Many of their portfolio companies are also based in this region, though they invest across geographies.
K9 Ventures focuses on investments in Enterprise, DevTools, AI, Marketplace. Their portfolio reflects deep expertise and networks within these sectors.
K9 Ventures's typical investment check size ranges from $250K to $750K. Actual amounts may vary based on the stage, sector, and specific opportunity.
K9 Ventures manages approximately $86.8M in assets under management (AUM) across their funds.
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