Kevin Zhang
Kevin Zhang partners from inception with founders building for the real world. Prior to BCV, Kevin led product as the first business hire at Fundera, a financial services marketplace.
About
What is the first company you invested in?
I first met Will Falcon over lunch at a Thai restaurant near the Facebook offices in New York, long before he incorporated the company that would become Lightning AI. I remember feeling immediately impressed with his vision for how his new open source project, already popular with machine learning researchers, could evolve into an ecosystem of tools for refining and deploying ML applications.
What do you love about working for Bain Capital Ventures?
What I respect and value the most is our willingness to do the right thing, and to optimize for long-term relationships. It's often easier to choose immediate gain, but I have seen our team repeatedly opt to make tough calls and double-down in support of founders and companies.
Do you have an investment ethos?
I believe that outsized impact starts with determined individuals. One of the privileges of venture investing is getting to meet remarkable people with uncommon track records, growth trajectory, and insight. I work with many first-time and early-career founders, including the first four investments I led for BCV: Will at Lightning AI, Sara and Gregg from Alloy Automation, Mike and Devon at Vesta, and Kash, Tejas, and Josh at Hightouch.
What is compelling about your domain?
In my last life, I delved deep into financial services as Head of Product at Fundera, a marketplace for business financing. Part of what I’ve learned is that financial services is an early adopter not only of vertical software, but also productivity tools and data analytics capabilities. Achieving greater efficiency, and making the right underwriting decisions, often makes the difference between a sustainable business or a bailout and loss for taxpayers.
What are your interests and passions outside of BCV?
As someone who is fascinated by unique characters, it’s probably no surprise that I’m an avid follower of politics and international relations. I grew up on fantasy novels, trading cards, real-time strategy games, and suburban wonders like Chili’s and Barnes & Noble. If Microsoft can turn World of Warcraft into a metaverse, you’ll probably find me living out the rest of my days on a riverside farm in Elwynn Forest. Whenever I find myself in an art museum, I’ll generally make a beeline for Ellsworth Kelly and any Hudson River School painters.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I spent too much time thinking that only "other people", whether more skilled or otherwise qualified, get to be entrepreneurs, venture investors, business executives, or generally to have an impact on the world.
Background
Insights
Portfolio
AqueductAcquired
Equipping B2B businesses with the tools to do billing, invoicing, quoting and accounting in one afternoon.
Hightouch
Enabling companies to activate their data warehouse to power personalized marketing and business operations.
