Ulu Ventures June News
Ulu kicked off summer by announcing the promotion of two of our incredible investment team members to partner! We celebrated our LGBTQ+ colleagues, founders, friends, and families during Pride Month. And Ulupreneurs raised more than $185M during the month of June. Just imagine […]
Tidying Up for Peanuts: Robots are Checking Into a Hotel (And More) Near You
An entrepreneurial pioneer in the computer and robotics age, Ulupreneur Joe Augenbraun has been founding companies for decades, and even took one public. At heart, he’s always been a tinkerer. [...]
Helping Families Grow With a More Personal, Affordable Fertility Service
Ulupreneur Claire Tomkins describes herself as an “unlikely candidate” for her current position as a healthtech founder and CEO at Future Family, a firm that helps make fertility care more [...]
Hello, Blockchain—Goodbye, Paper B2B Payments
Not many entrepreneurs can boast that one of their first jobs out of college involved learning to cook in one of the world’s most famous kitchens—Betty Crocker’s (it really exists). [...]
Ulu News May 2022
We are honored to have 85 Asian American and Pacific Islanders as founders in the Ulu portfolio and have spotlighted a few of their amazing stories in honor of AAPI [...]
The Sustainability and Healthcare Champion
Kathy Chen - Senior Principal Kathy Chen is a passionate and talented investor who brings deep subject matter expertise from her academic studies as well as her investment banking and [...]
How VR-Based Learning Experiences Can Help Us Understand Bias
Ulupreneur Heather Shen credits her family for the work she’s doing today. After her parents immigrated from China and landed in Rhode Island, Heather had to figure out what it [...]
Accelerating Discovery, Engagement, and Monetization for Podcasters
Founder and AAPI Ulupreneur Kal Amin is a Silicon Valley pioneer…only he’s never lived in Silicon Valley. Since the late 1990s, Kal has worked at some of the most iconic [...]
Deploying Capital for Sustainable Infrastructure Projects
Growing up in Vancouver, Ulupreneur Amanda Li started fighting climate change back when the naysayers were still in full swing. She dreamed of inventing something that would help the planet [...]
Expanding Access to Financial Services in Emerging Markets
As a child of Filipino immigrants, Ulupreneur Kevin Gabayan grew up in California as an aspiring techie that dreamed of becoming an inventor. A few decades and four patents later, [...]
On a Mission to Make Credit Scores Obsolete
Born in South Korea, Ulupreneur Kristy Kim was determined to build her American Dream after moving to the United States as an international student and graduating from UC Berkeley. She learned [...]
Making Early Education a National Priority
Ulupreneur Michael Lai is an advocate of education. He has dedicated himself to early childhood education (ECE) as a way to make the biggest difference in kids' lives. Through Tinycare [...]
Raising $3M a Day for Nonprofits
When we first met Ulupreneur Jenny Xia Spradling, Co-CEO of FreeWill, she talked about how hard nonprofits were struggling to raise money and firmly believed charities were willing to pay [...]
Ulu News April 2022
Sparks continue to fly as Ulu celebrated its 11th unicorn! Enya’s Boba Network raised $45M with a $1.5B valuation. Ulupreneurs raised more than $145M in funding. And hats off to [...]
Transforming Everyday Shopping into Nonprofit Impact
Growing up in Cleveland, Viveka Hulyalkar began her entrepreneurial career at the age of five by selling bookmarks. In grade school, emulating her hero Nancy Drew, she gave out business [...]
Banking on Gamer’s Passions
Ulupreneur Hector Hulian’s nine-year-old son was relentless when it came to prodding his Dad to buy him new video games. It was his son’s passion that later sparked Hector’s imagination. [...]
Promoting Diversity on Startup Boards
Founders have a responsibility to their investors to try and create the best outcome. Having diverse board members makes fiduciary sense because companies where boards are diverse generally outperform financially. [...]
Making Environmental Sustainability Profitable for Building Owners
Ulupreneur Raphael Rosen, CEO of Carbon Lighthouse, grew up hearing stories about John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, and internalized the ethos that if we don’t actively protect natural beauty and [...]
Ulu News March 2022
It’s spring and there’s new growth to celebrate! Ulupreneurs raised more than $215M; Ulu made some exciting new investments; founders shared their amazing stories; and we had a chance to [...]
Micro Daycares Primed to Help Students, Teachers, and Parents
Ulupreneur Michael Lai’s passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion began at a young age. Michael was born in China, and grew up in a predominantly white suburb of LA. Like [...]
The Quest to Move a Trillion Dollars into High Impact Charities
Ulupreneur Jenny Xia Spradling, the daughter of immigrant Chinese parents, grew up in Washington State. When she visited China as a child—where her not-so-distant relatives were still living in the [...]