As we approach summer of 2024 we are moving into a new phase at Koa Labs.
Over the past 2+ years we’ve shifted our capital allocation from direct investing in early stage companies to indirect investing in other seed funds.
As I inch slowly into semi-retirement I am increasingly focused on spending more time with my family — especially my 2 (soon to be 3) granddaughters. I want to free up as much time as possible to spend quality time with family. If you are interested in how I think about this phase of career/life — my co-author Paula and I outline our thoughts in Chapter 4 of our book Live for a Living.
As I mentioned in my previous update here, we’ve invested in a number of seed funds — now more than 22. The funds in which we have invested are listed here. We now consider our affiliate funds our primary focus at Koa. We will still opportunistically (but rarely) look at investing directly . This is an important expectation as we don’t like to waste entrepreneurs time — so probably not worth talking to us if you are looking for a direct check but we are always happy to provide referrals into our affiliate funds for the best entrepreneurs — especially those from underserved communities.
As we shift to indirect investing our primary motivations at Koa remain the same — just indirect via funds. Many of the funds in which we have invested share a mix of our same core interests — summarized below :
- First time founders with technical/scientific background
- Our founders usually represent an underserved community — women, immigrants, founders of color…
- Our average check size for direct investing has been ≈ $150K
- We never invest alone — always with another seed fund and usually with one of our affiliate seed funds and more often than not Founder Collective.
- We generally focus on HealthTech/MedTech/eHealth — but also invest in other areas — especially those related to AI, Data and Software Engineering
- Most of our investments are in Cambridge/Boston but occasionally in New York, Austin, Bay Area, Portland ME & Seattle.
I continue to measure my long term professional success in terms of the number of entrepreneurs who I’ve helped start on their entrepreneurial journey — especially those from under served communities. Investing indirectly helps create even more leverage in terms of the number of entrepreneurs with whom I can engage while also allocating more time for my family.
