VC firm sets $20m aside for its two youngest employees to invest in startups

A venture capital (VC) firm, Canaan Partners, has decided to set aside $20 million from its $800 million fund for its two youngest employees so that they can make their own decisions as a duo to invest in consumer startups.

The company wants to emulate how Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed Venture Partners became the first investor in Snapchat by discovering the app after he saw his colleague's daughter using it.

According to a report by TechCrunch, Canaan Partners has launched a new investment strategy called Canaan Beta. The new initiative sets aside $20 million of its total funding for investing in startups, and the whole process of screening, analysing and granting the investments will be handled by Hootan Rashidifard (28) and Adina Tecklu (27). Before starting work on Canaan Beta, both the employees worked as analysts, where they supported partners and founders.

Under the new initiative, they are empowered with decision-making authority to invest in startups on their own. So far, they have invested in five seed-stage startups, with checks ranging in size from $250,000 – $500,000 each.

Rashidifard and Tecklu are both young employees of the firm with enough experience in analysing companies and their potential. With this initiative, the VC firm has made sure that more investments are being made in startups which are diversifying in nature and suitable for the younger generation.

The duo is mostly looking into companies working in the blockchain, gaming, digital media, social and digital health domains. Tecklu said, "We are not looking for incremental improvements to products or services. We are looking at category defining and category creating companies here."