Kindred Ventures Announces $355M Across Fund IV and Selector II to Back the Age of Intelligence
TL;DR
Kindred Ventures has announced $355M across a new set of funds, pairing Kindred Ventures IV, its core early-stage vehicle, with Kindred Selector II, an early-growth fund built to follow its winners. Founded by Steve Jang and co-led with Kanyi Maqubela, the San Francisco firm is doubling down on a concentrated, high-conviction model and a thesis it calls the age of intelligence: a bet that AI, compute, energy, and novel models are reshaping search, video, voice, physics, biology, health, and money all at once. With early stakes in Uber, Coinbase, and Postmates already on the board, Kindred is using its largest fundraise yet to be the first check into the next wave of frontier companies, and to hold its ownership as they scale.
Key Takeaways
The two-fund structure is the strategic core, not a footnote. Fund IV writes the first checks at pre-seed and seed; Selector II exists to concentrate capital into the breakout companies as they grow. For a firm whose edge is conviction over volume, owning more of the winners is the whole game, and a dedicated growth vehicle is how you do that without diluting early-stage discipline.
$355M is a meaningful step up, but the model stays small. Kindred is known for backing roughly 25 companies per fund cycle. More capital plus a steady company count means bigger initial ownership and deeper reserves, not a sprawl into index-style investing. That is a deliberate, contrarian stance in an era of mega-funds.
The thesis is unusually expansive for an early-stage firm. Spanning AI, energy, compute, models, inference, biology, health, and money is either admirable range or a lot of surface area for a concentrated fund. The bet is that intelligence is the connective tissue across all of them, so a single lens can underwrite seemingly unrelated sectors.
The track record gives the thesis teeth. Early positions in Uber, Coinbase, and Postmates are exactly the kind of category-defining, contrarian-at-the-time bets the firm is now promising to repeat in frontier intelligence. LPs are underwriting that pattern as much as the new thesis.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Kindred Ventures IV (early stage) and Kindred Selector II (early growth)
Fund Size: $355M combined across the two vehicles
Stage: Primarily pre-seed and seed for Fund IV; follow-on and early growth for Selector II
Check Size: Not disclosed; concentrated portfolio of roughly 25 companies per cycle, often leading or co-leading
Geography: US-focused, headquartered in San Francisco
Focus: Frontier intelligence, the firm's age of intelligence thesis, spanning AI, energy, compute, models, inference and applications across search, video, voice, physics, biology, health, and money
Key LPs: Not publicly disclosed
Why This Fund Matters
Kindred is making a specific argument about where value accrues in the AI cycle. Most funds today are crowding into a narrow band, foundation models, AI infrastructure, and obvious application layers. Kindred's framing is broader and, in its own words, contrarian: that AGI is already here but unevenly distributed, and that the interesting work is in extending intelligence beyond human capability rather than merely replicating it. That reframing pushes the firm toward domains where intelligence is an input, biology, health, energy, money, not just toward the model layer where competition and capital are most concentrated.
The pairing of an early-stage fund with a dedicated growth vehicle is the more important structural signal. The defining problem for successful seed funds over the last decade has been dilution: you find the breakout early, then watch later-stage megafunds capture most of the upside as your ownership shrinks. Selector II is Kindred's answer, a pool of capital reserved to lean into its highest-conviction companies as they scale, preserving ownership through the rounds that matter most. It is the same logic that pushed firms like Founders Fund and a16z toward opportunity funds, applied at a more disciplined scale.
The concentrated model is the firm's real moat and its real risk. Backing roughly 25 companies per cycle means every pick carries weight; there is no portfolio sprawl to average out misses. That demands exceptional selection and the access to win competitive early rounds. Kindred's bet is that being a founder's first call, with hands-on support and a recognizable brand built on Uber-and-Coinbase pattern recognition, earns it into the rounds that generic capital cannot. In a market awash in seed dollars, differentiated access, not capital, is the scarce resource.
The expansiveness of the thesis is where reasonable observers will disagree. Underwriting biology, energy, money, and consumer AI from a single concentrated fund asks a lot of a small partnership's judgment and network depth across very different technical and regulatory terrains. The optimistic read is that intelligence genuinely is the common substrate and a generalist frontier lens is an advantage. The skeptical read is that frontier breadth and portfolio concentration are in tension, and the firm will need to be right about a handful of bets in domains that each demand specialist conviction.
The Team
Kindred was founded by Steve Jang in 2014 and is led by Jang and Kanyi Maqubela as managing partners. Jang, a Midas List investor, was an early advisor and investor in Uber from its founding and an early backer of Coinbase, Blue Bottle Coffee, Postmates, Zymergen, and Expa, a resume of contrarian, category-defining early bets that maps directly onto the firm's current frontier ambitions. Maqubela came up through Collaborative Fund, where he was an early advisor to companies including Tala and Walker & Co., and brings a builder-and-operator sensibility to Kindred's hands-on, coaching-oriented style. The two-person managing-partner structure keeps decision-making tight and conviction-driven, which suits a concentrated model, though it also concentrates the firm's success on the judgment and bandwidth of a small senior team across an intentionally broad thesis.
Early Portfolio
No Fund IV or Selector II investments were detailed in the announcement. Kindred's broader track record across prior funds includes early positions in Uber, Coinbase, Postmates, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Expa, with the firm citing more than 100 companies backed across its history.
What This Means for Founders
If you are building at the frontier of intelligence, broadly defined, Kindred is positioning itself as a first-call lead investor with the conviction to write an early check and the growth capital to keep backing you round after round. That continuity matters: a fund that can follow you from pre-seed through early growth reduces the risk of a financing gap at exactly the moment your company is breaking out. The trade-off is selectivity. With roughly 25 slots per cycle, Kindred is not a high-volume seed shop; you are competing for genuine conviction, not a spray-and-pray check.
Come with a thesis that fits Kindred's frame: intelligence that extends beyond human capability rather than simply automating existing tasks. Founders in biology, health, energy, money, and the harder edges of AI infrastructure and applications are squarely in the strike zone. Expect a hands-on, coaching relationship rather than a passive cap-table presence, and be prepared for the scrutiny that comes with being one of a small number of bets the firm is making.
Fund Momentum Take
This is a confident, coherent raise from one of the more distinctive small-fund franchises in the Valley. We like that Kindred is resisting the gravitational pull toward bigger-is-better and instead solving the seed investor's real problem, ownership erosion, with a purpose-built growth vehicle. The Fund IV plus Selector II architecture is exactly how a high-conviction firm should scale: more capital per winner, not more winners. The track record gives the partnership the credibility to play this way, and the brand gives it the access to win the rounds that justify it.
Our hesitation is the thesis breadth. Age of intelligence is a compelling narrative, but it is wide enough to rationalize almost any deal, and concentrated funds live or die on saying no. The discipline that makes Kindred work at the seed stage will be tested by a thesis that invites the firm to range across biology, energy, money, and consumer AI simultaneously. The risk is not that the thesis is wrong, it is that breadth quietly erodes the concentration that is the firm's edge.
Our bet: Kindred is one of the few small firms with the pattern recognition and access to make a concentrated frontier strategy pay, and the addition of a dedicated growth fund meaningfully improves its ability to capture the upside it finds early. We would watch how tightly the partnership actually holds the line on portfolio size, and whether Selector II gets deployed into clear breakouts rather than used to average down conviction. Get those two things right and $355M will look modest against the returns; get them wrong and the breadth of the thesis will be the reason why.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Kindred Ventures raise?
The firm announced $355M across a new set of funds: Kindred Ventures IV, its early-stage vehicle, and Kindred Selector II, an early-growth fund.
What is the difference between the two funds?
Fund IV makes early-stage investments, primarily at pre-seed and seed, while Selector II is structured to concentrate follow-on, early-growth capital into the firm's highest-conviction companies.
Who runs Kindred Ventures?
It was founded by Steve Jang in 2014 and is led by Jang and Kanyi Maqubela as managing partners.
What is the firm's investment thesis?
Kindred calls it the age of intelligence: backing frontier companies across AI, energy, compute, models, inference, and applications spanning search, video, voice, physics, biology, health, and money, with an emphasis on intelligence that extends beyond human capability.
What has Kindred invested in before?
Its track record includes early positions in Uber, Coinbase, Postmates, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Expa, with more than 100 companies backed across its history.
Have a fund closing to announce? Submit your fund here.
Need help raising capital? Check out our Fundraising Advisory services.