Continuing our journey — Fika III & Opp Fund I
Today, we are delighted to share that we have raised a $160M core fund and a $35M opportunity fund to bring patient capital to founders who make meaningful contributions to our society.
We couldn’t have asked for better new and existing Limited Partners — a dream group who saw in us what we sometimes didn’t see in ourselves. We have learned so much from you. Our shared values continue to inspire us to invest with purpose. And of course, none of this would be possible without the outstanding efforts and performance of our portfolio companies. You not only make us look good, but give us a reason to be.
When we started Fika in 2016, we set out to earn the trust of founders by being of service to them in just the right way. It’s hard to believe that in 5 short years, we’ve been able to partner with over 45 founders on their journeys, and help them raise close to $1B and create over $7B in market value. It’s a real privilege to work with the best of the best. As a founder, you have a lot of choice for capital. We intend to continue to stand out as investors who will give you an edge in being able to achieve your desired outcome.
While the size of this fund is larger than before, our core vision and strategy have not changed.
- We’re still making concentrated bets in enterprise software, fin tech, marketplaces and healthcare IT. These sectors are growing rapidly with a promise of a lot more innovation to come.
- While we invest all over the US and Canada, SoCal will always be home base, and we are excited to continue to be active contributors to this thriving, yet still emerging ecosystem.
- We like to be active partners to founders and deliver on our promises. As ex-operators, we know our most important goal is to give you leverage and make your life easier.
- While we will be writing slightly larger checks, we will continue to include our investor peers who can bring value to our syndicate. We prefer to link arms versus employ sharp elbows.
- We seek out founders who don’t fit the mold, are drawn to solve the impossible, and value the truth.
- We look for radical solutions that impact many and get us one step closer to a more equitable and just world.
- We’re staying disciplined by being good stewards of our capital and don’t plan on activating Fund III until 2022.
Raising this new fund also gave our team a chance to think about how we can improve, keep driving strong returns and compete effectively. As part of our evolution, a few things became clear:
- We need to continue to grow our team to provide the best service possible. On this note, we are thrilled to promote John Chen to be our Investing Partner and Matt Hersh to be our Operating Partner. John has brought immense contributions throughout his tenure at Fika, capitalizing on his extensive SaaS experience from his time at Emergence Capital and Box. Matt has also been instrumental in working closely with our founders, supporting them in GTM and helping them flourish post investment. We are also hiring to expand our team, so feel free to send along great candidates!
- Work ethic is important to us, but we need to build a scalable infrastructure to avoid team burnout.
- We will focus on building enduring companies and long-term relationships versus focusing on vanity metrics like markups and branded co-investors.
- We will embrace both hares and tortoises, contextualize expectations, and respect our companies’ different paths.
- We will continue to be focused at the Seed stage, where we can start conversations early and provide a safe place for founders to brainstorm and ask questions with no strings attached. We want to hear from you before you’re ready to raise.
- We will keep investing in our community to make the economic opportunities and the newly created wealth available to all. One key component of that is investing in diversity across the entire ecosystem.
We’re excited to keep executing on our vision and to continue supporting companies that commit to responsible innovation, sustainable growth, and a valuable mission.
A big THANK YOU to our founders, LPs, fellow investors, and colleagues for giving us the opportunity to keep doing the best job in the world. We will tirelessly identify and help pave the path for the next generation of category-defining companies, and we couldn’t have hoped for better travel companions along the way.
From our family to yours,
