My partner Lindel just put a post up on the about . We are proud to be an LP in Manu Kumar’s third fund. Foundry Group website our investment in K9 Ventures I’ve been friends with since 2009 and an (personally) in his first two funds. I vividly remember the first time we met — we were both sitting on the floor in the back corner at the fbFund Demo Day at the Facebook office in downtown Palo Alto. A were presented. Manu investor number of interesting companies I adore Manu. I love his style, his energy, and his intellect. We’ve had many conversations over the years where he’s reached out to me with a specific question about something and it’s clear that I’m one of several people he was calling to collect data on something that would inform his decision. It’s a classic engineer / rational problem-solving approach that appeals to me. While Manu went to , his style is similar to many of my MIT friends. CMU Not surprisingly, Manu still had our first email exchange. I love the minor “grapewine” typo in the first sentence. From: Manu Kumar manu@k9ventures.com Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:58 PM Subject: TechStars Demo Day in Mountain View, CA To: brad@feld.com Brad, Your posting below was forwarded to me over the grapewine. I’m actively investing in startups in the Bay Area and have been aware of some of the companies that have emerged from TechStars. Would love to attend and hear the pitches at your Demo Day in Mountain View. You can see my full background on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sneaker. It looks like we know several other folks in common too… look forward to meeting you. Best regards, -Manu While we must not have met there, I’m glad we were both in the back of the room the following summer. Our next meeting was lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto called Mandarin Gourmet. It was during that meal that Manu told me about the fund he was raising. I made a commitment to invest at the end of lunch and we’ve been working together ever since. Originally published at Feld Thoughts .
