BURLINGAME, Calif., July 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Goodwater, the largest venture capital fund exclusively focused on consumer tech investments, announced today that it has raised over $1 billion across its family of early and growth stage funds. With this raise, Goodwater accelerates its mission to empower exceptional entrepreneurs everywhere to change the world for good. With a clear consumer tech focus and global reach, the firm has backed 79 early and growth stage startups in 19 countries around the world. Founded in 2014 by industry veterans Chi-Hua Chien and Eric Kim, the firm now manages over $3.3B in committed capital and continues to scale as much of the venture industry is slowing.
“During a tough time in the market we are ready to support the very best early and growth stage consumer tech startups with $1 billion of fresh capital. We appreciate the support and trust placed in us by our Limited Partners. This new capital will fuel our global investing approach and strengthen our position as the best consumer tech investing platform in the world,” said Chi-Hua Chien, Co-Founder & Managing Partner.
“With our laser focus on consumer tech, global portfolio of companies building market-leading digital consumer utilities, and software-enabled platform, we are energized to champion the success of the most promising consumer tech startups around the world,” added Eric Kim, Co-Founder & Managing Partner. “We look forward to supporting ambitious teams building transformative digital solutions to address the needs of 8 billion humans who need better access to housing, healthcare, food, financial services, transportation, education, and entertainment.”
Proven Consumer Technology Expertise
Goodwater has established itself as a leader in consumer technology venture capital with a proven track record of successful investments. The firm’s global portfolio spans a number of the most impactful consumer tech startups of the past decade, including social media company musical.ly (acquired by Bytedance, China / US), fintech super app Toss (S. Korea), ethnic grocery eCommerce leader Weee! (California), fintech disruptor Stash (New York), global live entertainment platform Fever (Spain / UK), neighborhood social app Karrot (S. Korea), British neobank Monzo (UK), 10-minute delivery standout Getir (Turkey), and health tech innovator Everly Health (Texas). The firm’s partners also made early investments in Coupang, Facebook, Kakao, Spotify, and Twitter before launching Goodwater. For founders building a consumer tech company, Goodwater’s sector focus provides a distinct advantage in the market with proprietary data and services.
“We have been fortunate to partner with Goodwater since our early days and they have continued to provide tremendous value to us as we’ve scaled. Their consumer tech expertise has been invaluable as we’ve navigated growth from an early stage startup to a multi-billion dollar company. Goodwater is truly a global firm that uniquely appreciates the consumer tech opportunity for companies like Toss,” said SG Lee, Founder and CEO of Toss based in Seoul, South Korea.
Unique Global Approach
Goodwater’s consumer-only sector focus enables the firm to take a systematic global approach to investing. The firm actively participates in key consumer tech innovation hubs across North America, Europe, North Asia, SE Asia, and Latin America, leveraging a global perspective to share best practices across the portfolio and help companies win their markets. The global community of Goodwater CEOs and leaders gathers regularly in person and online to share best practices via Masterclasses taught by functional experts and small group squads designed to boost each company’s performance in specific focus areas including customer acquisition, conversion, engagement, retention, and monetization. In the last year alone, over 1,400 Goodwater founders and executives attended or viewed the firm’s Masterclasses over 5,000 times.
Goodwater’s team has invested in and operated global consumer tech giants like Coupang, Twitter, Kakao, Facebook, Activision Blizzard, Toss, and Spotify, uniquely positioning the firm to invest in the best global opportunities and help entrepreneurs win in large, competitive markets. Goodwater provides tactical, hands-on support to companies solving problems common to consumer-tech startups including:
- How do I acquire customers?
- How do I engage them deeply in my product or service?
- How do I retain those customers and keep them happy over time?
- How do I build a healthy and scalable business through eCommerce, services, or ads?
Software-Enabled, Platform Approach
Since its inception, Goodwater has invested heavily in proprietary software that enables the firm to identify and invest in the best companies and help to accelerate their growth. The firm’s software-enabled platform, powered by proprietary insights on consumer tech trends, enables the firm to track millions of products globally and understand how consumers are adopting new technologies. Its team of engineers, data scientists, and product managers builds software tools to help founders boost performance across their most important KPIs.
Goodwater has 79 venture and growth investments and the world’s largest dedicated consumer tech seed portfolio with over 600 seed deals across more than 50 countries. In addition to Founders Chi-Hua Chien and Eric Kim, Goodwater’s investing partnership includes Coddy Johnson, Hatim Khety, Jin Oh, and Vivek Subramanian.
To join the largest consumer tech platform dedicated to serving founders and teams globally, reach out at info@goodwatercap.com. Founders of seed-stage companies can apply to Goodwater’s Genesis program directly through our website.
About Goodwater
The mission of Goodwater Capital is to empower exceptional entrepreneurs everywhere to change the world for good. We are 100% focused on consumer tech, an area that we define simply as apps and services adopted directly by consumers.
Goodwater invests in consumer tech companies across early and growth stages. We manage more than $3 billion of committed capital and have the flexibility to invest anywhere from seed stage up to $100M+ into companies. We have been honored to invest in and help build successful companies including Chegg (CHGG), Coupang (CPNG), Facebook (FB), Kakao, Monzo, Musical.ly (acquired by Bytedance), Stash, Spotify (SPOT), Toss, Twitter (TWTR), Weee!, and Xendit.
Goodwater is the largest venture capital firm exclusively focused on consumer tech investments. With a global investment approach, the firm identifies and invests in the most promising consumer technology startups worldwide. Goodwater’s deep industry expertise, extensive network, and data-driven approach allow it to provide unparalleled support to entrepreneurs, guiding them towards becoming market-leading companies. For more information, visit www.goodwatercap.com.
Media Contact
Kelsey Cullen, KCPR
kelsey@kcpr.com
650.438.1063
This post is provided solely for informational purposes and should not be relied upon as investment advice or construed as an offer to provide investment advisory services. This post does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of interest to invest in any pooled investment vehicle managed by Goodwater Capital, LLC (“Goodwater”). Investments referenced are not representative of all prior Goodwater investments and there can be no assurance that the investments referenced will be profitable or that future investments will have similar characteristics or results. This post may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Because forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from expectations or projections made or implicated in such statements. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
SOURCE Goodwater