Emerging Microfund Managers

Sree Kolli
3 min readJan 13, 2021

As the new quarter rolls around, our team at Conduit sat down to review and collate some of the top emerging managers across the globe. Critically, this distinct cohort of managers retains impressive operating chops in addition to investment experience.

Their range of investments spans healthtech, SaaS, telemedicine, cannabis, IoT, future of work, productivity, energy, climate, eCommerce, CPG, proptech, transportation, and fintech verticals. In the wake of modern workplaces post-pandemic, this cohort of founders is distinctly remote-first when contrasted with traditional Sand Hill multi-fund managers.

Emerging Managers

Bobby Goodlatte is the Founder and General Partner at Form Capital. Prior to launching Form, Bobby served as Product Designer at Facebook. His investments include Coinbase, Artsy, Envoy, Expo, Almanac, Guesty, and Hodinkee, among others.

Danielle Strachman is the Founder and General Partner at 1517 Fund. Prior to launching 1517, she served as the Program Director for the Thiel Fellowship. Based in Oakland, her portfolio includes Loom, Lambda, Foxtrot, and Fountain, among others.

Sahil Lavingia is the Founder and General Partner at Shl.VC. In addition to founding and currently running Gumroad, he served as employee #2 at Pinterest. His portfolio includes Lambda, Makerpad, Figma, Clubhouse, Notion, Circle, Haus, and HelloSign.

Andreas Klinger is the Founder and General Partner at Remote First Capital. In addition, Andreas recently joined On Deck at CTO. His portfolio includes Commsor, Main Street, and Hopin.

Catharine Dockery is the Founder and General Partner at Vice Ventures, a microfund focused specifically on traditional “vice” categories. Based in Brooklyn, her portfolio includes Recess, Players Lounge, Lucy, Plant People, and Maude, among others.

Harry Stebbings is the Founder at The Twenty Minute VC and a Partner at Stride.VC. Based in London, his portfolio includes Digits, Fast, Hopin, Kapwing, Roam, and Superhuman, among a host of others. At Stride, his investments include Linktree, Pillpack, Deliveroo, and Cazoo.

Brianne Kimmel is the Founder and General Partner at Worklife Ventures. Prior to launching Worklife, Brianne spent time at Zendesk in San Francisco. Her portfolio includes Webflow, Haus, Public, Stir, Podia, Settle, Pipe, Viable Fit, and Tandem, among others.

Steve Schlafman is the Founder and General Partner at High Output, a boutique coaching firm and microfund. Prior to launching High Output, Steve spent time at Primary, RRE, and Lerer Hippeau in NYC. His portfolio includes Brightwheel, Supergreat, Superpeer, and Teal.

Jeff Morris Jr. is the Founder and General Partner at Chapter One. Previously, Jeff served as the VP of Product and Revenue at Tinder. Based in LA, his investments include Cameo, Chalk, Roam, Italic, Lambda, and Mercury, among others.

Ben Zises is the Founder and General Partner at Super Angel. Previously, Ben served as COO at Tri-Hill Management, a real estate investment firm. Based in NYC, his investments include Quip, Caraway, Haus, Lalo, Judy, Brightland, and Cleancult, among others.

Todd Goldberg is the Founder and Managing Partner at Todd & Rahul’s Angel Fund, a $7 million microfund that he leads with Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra. Todd’s portfolio includes Clearbit, Pitch, Clubhouse, Mercury, Coda, Levels, Haus, Descript, On Deck, and dozens of others.

Lucy Guo is the Founder and General Partner at Backend Capital. Prior to Backend, Lucy co-founded Scale AI. Her investments include Secureframe and Trove, among others.

Niv Dror is the Founder and General Partner at Shrug Capital. Prior to launching Shurg, Niv led marketing at AngelList and Product Hunt. His portfolio includes HQ Trivia, Superhuman, Atoms, Molly, Haus, and Breaker, among others.

At Conduit, we connect the world’s best operator-investors and founders building the next generation of startups around the world.

As we scale our platform, understanding key market shifts across verticals will become increasingly vital. Our team will be digging deeper into emerging trends and first movers in the coming weeks, which you can find here.

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