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In 2015, Lu Zhang launched her own venture capital firm Fusion Fund. She was just 25, had recently immigrated from Inner Mongolia, and already sold her healthcare startup, Acetone—a company building medical devices for testing type II diabetes—which she founded while doing her material science and engineering Masters at Stanford University.
The bold bet paid off. Since its launch in 2015, when Zhang raised a first fund of only $15 million, Fusion Fund has invested in more than 75 startups and now manages roughly $500 million in assets.
On the back of the success of her earlier funds, on Thursday, Zhang’s firm, Fusion Fund, announced it closed a $190 million Fund IV in an oversubscribed round backed by institutional limited partners.
“My background is a combination of all the labels—minority, immigrant, young, woman,” said Zhang, who was the featured honoree on the 2017 30 Under 30 list. “But I didn’t spend time complaining. I just spent time proving people wrong.”
Investing in early-stage (pre-seed to Series A) tech and healthcare startups, Fusion Fund has minted at least five unicorns, including food-tech company GrubMarket (last valued at over $3 billion), photo-and-video editing app developer Lightricks ($1.8 billion) and DNA sequencing developer Element Biosciences ($1.03 billion). It has also had 10 portfolio companies exit—including Under 30 alum Accern, which uses AI to provide banks and other enterprises data on public companies and was acquired last month.
Zhang says she initially targeted $150 million for its Fund IV, but raised beyond its goal on strong demand. Check sizes vary between $25 million and $30 million, and it’s already committed its money to five startups, including spacetech company Starpath and AI safety startup SAIF Systems.
Raising in the current market, when you’re not Andreessen Horowitz or Sequoia, is no easy feat. Since the glory days of 2021 and early 2022—when global investments exceeded $600 billion and unicorns popped up left and right—the market has seriously dampened. “Raising a fund in this market is really impressive,” says PitchBook VC analyst Kyle Stanford. “It shows investors are able to command that respect from their LPs,” he said.
Zhang says tech founders like that she’s walked in their shoes: As a Stanford grad and technologist, she can understand the product, and as a former founder who sold a company, she knows the challenges of scaling a startup. She’s since tapped several partners with a tech background to join Fusion Fund, such as ex-HP CTO Shane Wall and David Gester, who spent time at Groupon and Yahoo.
“As an entrepreneur, we quickly learn and evolve and do better,” she said. “Don’t be obsessed with the Fund I size. Just quickly raise and build up the portfolio. If you start to deploy capital, you’re in the game and you’ll be able to validate your methodology.”
See you next week,
Alex and Zoya
How Crumbl Devoured America
Ever wondered if the cookie brand you can’t escape on your TikTok “For You Page”— and seemingly in every other neighborhood—is actually making any money? The short answer is, yes. In 2023, for example, Crumbl earned $122 million in revenue from franchise royalties. How did the founders turn a simple cookie business into something so … sweet? Find out here.
Lister Lowdown
– Epoch Biodesign founder Jacob Nathan, who made the 30 Under 30 Europe Social Impact list in 2024, announced this week an $18.3 million Series A. The funding will be used to scale up production of its plastic-eating enzymes, he told TechCrunch. Plus, the startup is also building out its use of AI to understand complex datasets and more.
-Under 30 Energy & Green Tech lister Luke Maria, cofounder of San Fransisco-based EV charging company Voltpost, has secured $2.6 million in grant funding from the U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation’s Communities Taking Charge Accelerator. The funding will go toward deploying 75 Voltpost chargers to communities across the country.
-Brunch, a slipper and footwear company cofounded by Under 30 lister and Madhappy cofounder Daniel Sitt and his brother Joshua Sitt, is celebrating the launch of the new season of The White Lotus, with a new collection and campaign. The collection comes with a five minute guided meditation online, as well as products ranging from White Lotus-branded slippers, robes, beach totes and more.
On Our Radar
–Forbes identified the highest-paid actors of 2024, and there’s only one woman to make the top 10—Nicole Kidman. From Netflix’s The Perfect Couple to two movies on the big screen, 57-year-old Kidman earned $31 million ($41 million gross) in 2024. Others to join Kidman on the list were Dwayne Johsnon, coming in at No. 1 with $88 million ($103 million gross) earned, followed by Ryan Reynolds with $85 million ($100 million gross).
-Remember when Sag Harbor cop Michael Atkinson “ruined Justin Timberlake’s world tour”? Well he’s just been rewarded for his work. The 24-year-old who arrested Timberlake (who made Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list in 2019) for a DUI last summer was just named Sag Harbor’s Officer of the Year. (CBS News)
-Workplace drama Severance continues to draw in record-breaking audiences—officially topping Ted Lasso for most unique viewers of an Apple TV+ show late last month. But some argue the series is “making a fetish of the office.” While season one released in early 2022, just a few months post-Covid lockdowns, season two coincides with a large number of tech, government and other industry jobs being shuffled back on-site. Still, “the office was becoming a site not only of fear and resentment but also of longing… The imposed niceties of a necktie and the genteel disappointments of a broken coffee machine were starting to feel, if not liberating, then at least kind of fun,” wrote The New Yorker.