Hyphen Capital

Hyphen Capital is a venture capital firm that backs Asian American entrepreneurs, investing early across stages from pre-seed to growth and writing first checks when it has conviction in a founder. It describes itself as stage agnostic and says it will double down on companies it believes in, rather than following typical round dynamics. Beyond capital, the firm connects founders to a network of more than a thousand founders and operators, offering warm introductions to customers, investors and hires alongside product and go-to-market feedback from people who have built companies before. Hyphen was founded by Dave Lu, who previously worked at Yahoo!, Apple, eBay and Cisco, having founded the companies Fanpop and Expo before starting the Asian American Founders Circle in 2011, a group the firm says inspired Hyphen and has since grown to include hundreds of founders.