Manu Kumar

Solo GP

Founder & Chief Firestarter, K9 Ventures

Pre-seed pioneer in deep tech and infrastructure

Bay Area, CA (within 30 miles of Stanford)$250K–$750K checks7 notable investments

Pre-SeedSeed

Website LinkedIn 𝕏@ManuKumar K9 Ventures Crunchbase

Deep TechDeveloper ToolsInfrastructureAIData

Background

Manu Kumar is the founder and Chief Firestarter of K9 Ventures, a pre-seed micro-VC he established in April 2009, widely credited with coining the term "pre-seed." He holds a PhD in Computer Science and studied electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon before earning degrees from Stanford. Prior to K9, he founded SneakerLabs, acquired for over $100M during the dot-com era, and co-founded iMeet, later sold to Premiere Conferencing. K9 Ventures makes 3–4 hyper-concentrated investments per year, writing $250K–$750K checks exclusively to Bay Area teams within approximately 30 miles of Stanford. He is also co-founder and CEO of HiHello and a co-founder and early investor in Carta.

Investment Thesis

First institutional check into 1-2 person founding teams with genuinely new technology or new markets; hyper-local Bay Area focus with founder-as-company-builder involvement.