Manu Kumar is the founder of K9 Ventures, a technology-focused Pre-Seed fund based in Palo Alto, California. K9 Ventures was the first "pre-seed" venture firm in the industry, and Manu was the earliest investor in companies like Twilio, Lyft, Carta, Crowdflower, and many more. Manu has a truly unique outlook on the VC business, and has a highly disciplined investment model that he's stuck with since the beginning in 2009.
In this episode, we discuss Manu's time at Carnegie Melon and Stanford, where he received his PhD, his success as an entrepreneur, how he started K9 as a solo GP, his unique investment approach and portfolio construction strategy, and how he is planning to build K9 Ventures in the decades to come.
