Jonathan Teo and Justin Caldbeck will be launching a new consumer technology-focused fund, TechCrunch reported. The news, which was first revealed by Fortune, was also confirmed by the two sources of TechCrunch.
The fund that will be launched by the two venture capitalists is going to be called Binary. It intends to make early-stage investments in companies working in the consumer technology space. The fund will not provide seed investments. Rather, it intends to help young companies already in the post-seed stage so that they can concentrate on making their product better without having to worry about funds, the report said.
Teo and Caldbeck have known each other for six years. Teo worked for two years as the Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners and still continues to be its venture advisor, Fortune reported. While there, the former Google engineer, led the Series A and Series B rounds of General Catalyst in Snapchat. He was also part of the rounds for Chloe+Isabel, Couchsurfing and HeyDay. Before his stint at General Catalyst, he also worked at Benchmark Capital where he was instrumental in the company's investments in Instagram and Twitter, the report said.
Caldbeck, meanwhile, has been with Lightspeed Venture Partners as a partner for the past three years. Some of his investments in the firm, where he is still concluding activities, include Bloomreach, GrubHub, Petflow and TaskRabbit. The company was also a part of the company's investment in Snapchat. He also worked with Bain Capital Ventures where he helped the firm open its office in the West Coast, Fortune reported.
Although the duo's decision to establish their own firm will be their previous firms' loss, it will be a welcome development for consumer tech companies that are having difficulties getting post-seed stage investment funding. The amount that the new fund intends to raise is still not known, the report said.
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