Uncles, aunties, and the next force in venture capital
First-generation Chinese and Indian immigrants built extraordinary wealth in this valley over four decades. Their children are starting the next generation of companies. Almost none of that capital reaches those founders. Closing that gap is the entire reason we exist.
What we invest in
We are deliberately narrow. We invest where we can judge the founder, understand the product, and be genuinely useful afterward — and we would rather pass on a good company outside that circle than pretend we have an edge we do not have.
Second-generation founders
Chinese and Indian American founders, often out of YC batches and the CS programs at Berkeley, Stanford, and Illinois. They inherited the first generation's work ethic and gained something their parents never had: the room to take a real swing.
Enterprise software
Where we can assess the product and reach the buyer. Legal technology in particular — an industry carrying an enormous manual workload, with incumbents that move slowly and customers who pay for real work done well.
The Bay Area, and the return trip
Silicon Valley first, because it is where we live and where our network is. We also back founders going back to their families' home countries to build, where language, relationships, and knowing how things actually work are advantages outsiders cannot replicate.
How we work
We are new, and we say so
This is our first vehicle. We have no track record to point at and we are not going to manufacture one. What we have is a real network, diligence we do ourselves, and terms you can read without a lawyer translating.
No blind pool, ever
You never wire money into a pool and hope. You commit nothing upfront, see each company individually, and your capital moves only into deals you personally said yes to.
We write our own checks
We put our own money into the deals we bring you. If we do not have the conviction to invest ourselves, we have no business asking you to.
We say the risks out loud
Early-stage investing means real risk of losing the entire amount. We say that in the same breath as the upside, on every single deal, however good the company looks.
Who you are dealing with
We grew up here — Almaden Valley, South San Jose. Our parents came for engineering jobs and built careers at the companies that turned orchards into an industry. We went to Berkeley and Illinois and into that same industry ourselves.
We are the second generation this thesis is about. That is why we can find these founders, and why the families considering this already know who we are. You will always be talking to one of the two of us — never an associate, never a call center.
Want to talk it through properly?
We are glad to walk through how we evaluate a company, and just as glad to answer the harder questions about risk.