LA's largest dedicated seed fund · Founded 2016 by TX Zhuo & Eva Ho (Applied Semantics→Google AdSense, Factual, Susa Ventures) · $500M+ AUM across 4 funds · Biggest exits: SGNL (CrowdStrike $740M), Openpath (Motorola $297M), Pipe ($2B unicorn), BuildOps (unicorn 2025) · Focus: B2B software founders, vertical SaaS, fintech
| Founded | 2016 |
| Location | Los Angeles, CA |
| Website | fika.vc |
| Stage Focus | Pre-Seed, Seed ($2-8M rounds) |
| Latest Fund | Fund IV — $160M (Sep 2024) |
| Total AUM | ~$500M+ across 4 funds |
| Deal Cadence | 136+ investments, ~50% LA-based |
| Key Stat | 60%+ of follow-on capital from leads Fika introduced |
| Focus Areas | Vertical SaaS Fintech Marketplaces AI / ML Commerce Healthcare |
Thesis: Invests in subject matter experts shaping the future of their industries. Positions as extension of portfolio management teams — recruiting, biz dev, capital strategy. Leads almost all investments. Deliberately backs "non-central casting" founders — optimizes for responsiveness, grit, and execution over pedigree.
| Fund | Vintage | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fund I | 2017 | $40M | Debut fund, raised in ~6 months |
| Fund II | 2019 | $76M | Nearly doubled Fund I |
| Fund III | 2021 | $160M | Plus $35M opportunity fund ($195M total) |
| Fund IV | 2024 | $160M | Same size as III — AUM discipline over growth |
Fund IV intentionally kept at same size as Fund III — AUM discipline over growth. Sources: TechCrunch, BusinessWire, Medium/TX Zhuo.
Reconstructed from Wayback MachineInternet Archive's web crawler — captures periodic snapshots of websites, allowing comparison of page content across time. snapshots of fika.vc/team at ~yearly intervals (2017–2026), cross-referenced with press releases and news articles.
Pattern: Fika promotes heavily from within (Gabriella: 4 promotions in 5 years, John: Principal→GP in 4 years). Senior departures are common at Sr Associate level (~2yr tenure). The 2024 restructuring — losing a co-founder, gaining back a founding member, promoting two to GP — was the most significant team change in firm history.
Eva Ho's removal from fika.vc was not a deliberate edit to the existing site. It coincided with a complete website rebuild — from Craft CMS to Webflow — launched alongside the Fund IV announcement. The old site never removed her; its meta keywords still listed "Eva Ho" on the last snapshot (Aug 23, 2024). She simply wasn't included when the new site went live.
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| May 9, 2024 | TechCrunch reports Eva Ho is "stepping back from the firm for personal reasons," citing a leaked LP email from TX Zhuo. The article notes Ho "will continue to honor her existing board commitments through Fund III deployment." | TechCrunch, May 9 2024 — Connie Loizos "Fika Ventures co-founder Eva Ho is stepping back from the firm" |
| Jul 2024 | Eva Ho's formal GP role ends per corporate filings. | MarketScreener corporate filings — GP end date listed as July 2024 |
| Aug 19, 2024 | New Webflow site created. Decoded from Webflow ObjectIDWebflow assigns MongoDB-style ObjectIDs to site elements. The first 8 hex chars encode a Unix timestamp of creation time. in page source: 66c38a5f... → Unix 1724090975 → Aug 19 2024 17:49:35 UTC. |
HTML source analysis of fika.vc Webflow markup |
| Aug 23, 2024 | Last Wayback Machine snapshot showing Eva Ho on the old Craft CMS site. Meta keywords still include "Eva Ho". Team page lists her as General Partner with full bio. | Wayback Machine snapshot, Aug 23 2024 |
| Aug 29, 2024 | New site's OG image uploaded. Webflow ObjectID on image asset: 66d0b392... → Aug 29 2024. |
Webflow asset ObjectID decode |
| Sep 11, 2024 | Fund IV announced via BusinessWire PR: "$160M to back bold seed-stage founders." PR quotes TX Zhuo, John Chen, Arteen Arabshahi. No mention of Eva Ho. | BusinessWire, Sep 11 2024 — "Fika Ventures Raises $160 Million Fund IV" |
| Sep 12, 2024 | First Wayback snapshot of the new Webflow site. Eva Ho absent. Old Craft CMS site gone. New team page lists TX Zhuo, John Chen, Arteen Arabshahi as GPs. | Wayback Machine snapshot, Sep 12 2024 |
The departure was handled with unusual silence compared to other 2024 VC exits:
| Departure | How Handled |
|---|---|
| Keith Rabois → Khosla Ventures | Announced move, public statements from both sides |
| David Singerman left Founders Fund | Bloomberg broke story; both parties acknowledged |
| Samir Zuberi left 776 | LinkedIn post, new firm announcement |
| Eva Ho left Fika | No public statement from either party. Leaked LP email only. |
As of March 2026, Eva Ho appears to be in a quiet transition period — no new fund, no new firm announced.
| Role | Organization | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Venture Advisor | Screendoor | Active (since 2021) |
| Mentor | Mucker Capital | Active |
| Board Member | California Community Foundation | Active |
| Board Member | Common Crawl Foundation | Active |
| Advisory Board | UCLA Technology Development Group | Active |
| Board / Advisor | First Descents, MState, Spinwheel | Ongoing |
| Co-Founder | All Raise | Founding role (2018) |
Notable: Eva Ho co-founded both Susa Ventures (2013–2017) and Fika Ventures (2016–2024). She also co-founded All Raise, the initiative to increase female representation in VC. Her prior career includes being the first business hire at Applied Semantics (acquired by Google, became AdSense), co-founding Factual (data company), and co-founding Navigating Cancer. Harvard BA, Cornell MBA.
Signal: No new fund filing, no new firm website, no GP role at another fund. LinkedIn still lists Fika as most recent VC role. The board seats and advisor roles suggest continued engagement with the ecosystem but not active fund management.
| Company | Description | Outcome | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| SGNL | Zero-trust identity security | Acquired (CrowdStrike, $740M) | 2020 |
| Openpath | Cloud-based mobile access control | Acquired (Motorola, $297M) | 2018 |
| Edge Impulse | Edge ML platform for embedded devices | Acquired (Qualcomm) | 2019 |
| Berbix | Identity verification platform | Acquired (Socure) | 2018 |
| Policygenius | Insurance comparison marketplace | Acquired (Zinnia) | 2017 |
| Iteratively | Analytics tracking governance | Acquired (Amplitude) | 2019 |
| PullRequest | Code review as a service | Acquired (HackerOne) | 2018 |
| Propelo | Engineering productivity analytics | Acquired (Harness) | 2019 |
| Formative | Real-time student assessment | Acquired (Newsela) | 2017 |
| Storepath | eCommerce aggregation | Acquired (Thrasio) | 2019 |
| Basis | Financial planning automation | Acquired (Digits) | 2020 |
| Glidian | Healthcare prior authorization | Acquired (Infinx) | 2019 |
| Datum Source | Manufacturing data platform | Acquired (Hadrian) | 2020 |
| Pipe | Revenue-based financing platform | Unicorn ($2B, 2021) | 2019 |
| BuildOps | Cloud platform for commercial contractors | Unicorn (2025) | 2018 |
| Company | Description | Sector | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payabli | Payment infrastructure for vertical SaaS | Fintech | 2021 |
| Clerq | Accounting automation for startups | Fintech | 2022 |
| Grid | Business banking for SMBs | Fintech | 2022 |
| Allocate | Alternative investment management | Fintech | 2021 |
| Agent | AI-powered insurance agent platform | Fintech | 2023 |
| AKKO | Device protection plans | Fintech | 2020 |
| Bowery Valuation | AI-powered commercial real estate appraisal | Proptech | 2019 |
| Coverbase | Insurance agency management | Fintech | 2022 |
| Deferred | Tax-deferred exchange platform | Fintech | 2023 |
| Dispatch | Home service marketplace payments | Fintech | 2021 |
| Fortify | Construction lending automation | Fintech | 2022 |
| Freely Payments | Payment processing | Fintech | 2023 |
| MaxHome.AI | AI for home services | Proptech | 2025 |
| Minerva | Financial workflow automation | Fintech | 2023 |
| New Range | Capital markets infrastructure | Fintech | 2023 |
| Outmarket AI | AI for financial marketing | Fintech | 2024 |
| Papaya | Bill pay simplification | Fintech | 2018 |
| Revenew | Revenue recovery for suppliers | Fintech | 2022 |
| Spinwheel | Student loan data connectivity | Fintech | 2020 |
| Throughline Risk | Risk analytics platform | Fintech | 2023 |
| Upfort | Cyber insurance and security | Fintech | 2021 |
| Volta | Charging infrastructure management | Fintech | 2021 |
| Zentist | Dental claims automation | Fintech | 2018 |
| StretchDollar | Employee financial wellness | Fintech | 2023 |
| Sunbound | Solar financing | Fintech | 2024 |
| Dolly Card | Kids financial literacy | Fintech | 2023 |
| Decisionly | Decision intelligence platform | Fintech | 2023 |
| Measured | Insurance analytics | Fintech | 2022 |
| CreatorDAO | Creator economy finance | Fintech | 2022 |
| Blox | Financial AI for real estate | Proptech | 2024 |
| Specright | Specification data management | Vertical SaaS | 2018 |
| Siro | AI coach for field sales teams | AI / ML | 2021 |
| Ivo | Legal workflow automation | Vertical SaaS | 2022 |
| Orbital | Infrastructure inspection AI | AI / ML | 2022 |
| Sift | Data infrastructure | Dev Tools | 2022 |
| Field AI | Autonomous systems for unstructured environments | AI / ML | 2023 |
| First Resonance | Manufacturing execution system | Vertical SaaS | 2020 |
| DevZero | Cloud development environments | Dev Tools | 2022 |
| Elementary | AI quality inspection for manufacturing | AI / ML | 2020 |
| Fullcast | Revenue operations planning | Vertical SaaS | 2020 |
| Bikky | Restaurant customer data platform | Vertical SaaS | 2021 |
| CUT+DRY | Foodservice distribution platform | Marketplace | 2021 |
| Clarify | AI CRM | AI / ML | 2023 |
| Corvus AI | AI-powered visual inspection | AI / ML | 2023 |
| Hue | AI for creative teams | AI / ML | 2024 |
| Inspectiv | Security testing platform | Cybersecurity | 2019 |
| Moonshine AI | Edge AI model optimization | AI / ML | 2023 |
| Neurox | Neuroscience-based AI | AI / ML | 2024 |
| OpsHelm | Cloud security remediation | Cybersecurity | 2022 |
| PathSpot | Hand hygiene monitoring | Healthcare | 2019 |
| Reken | AI safety and trust | AI / ML | 2024 |
| Remarkable AI | AI for insurance workflows | Fintech | 2024 |
| Signal7 | Security signal detection | Cybersecurity | 2023 |
| SubBase | Construction material procurement | Vertical SaaS | 2022 |
| Tolemi | Location intelligence platform | Vertical SaaS | 2022 |
| Vendition | Sales apprenticeship platform | Vertical SaaS | 2018 |
| Spover | Sports sponsorship marketplace | Marketplace | 2023 |
| Ajax | Business productivity software | Vertical SaaS | 2026 |
| Apiphany | API management | Dev Tools | 2024 |
| Areal | Geospatial analytics | AI / ML | 2024 |
| Beeble | AI video production | AI / ML | 2024 |
| Havana | Commerce platform | Commerce | 2024 |
| Moment Energy | EV battery second-life energy storage | CleanTech | 2023 |
| Noyo | Insurance data infrastructure | Healthcare | 2019 |
| Accorded | Actuarial software for healthcare | Healthcare | 2020 |
| Atticus | Legal services for disability/workers comp | Healthcare | 2020 |
| Renee | Senior care coordination | Healthcare | 2021 |
| Workup | Healthcare workforce management | Healthcare | 2023 |
| Chowbus | Asian food delivery marketplace | Marketplace | 2018 |
| Upwards | Childcare marketplace | Marketplace | 2021 |
| Criya | Professional services marketplace | Marketplace | 2022 |
| Rivora | Supply chain marketplace | Marketplace | 2024 |
| Firm | Score | Focus | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fika Ventures | 72 | vertical-saasfintechaicommerce | TX Zhuo, $500M+ AUM, 2 unicorns, largest LA seed fund |
| TenOneTen Ventures | 65 | aidatasaashealthtech | Elbaz/Waxman, technical founders, legacy industry SaaS |
| Susa Ventures | 70 | datasaasfintech | SF-based, data-driven. Eva Ho co-founded before Fika |
| Humba Ventures | 50 | hard-technuclearrobotics | Leo Polovets (ex-Susa), $100-500K checks, hard tech thesis |
| Upfront Ventures | 45 | softwareconsumer | Mark Suster, seed/A, broad consumer+enterprise |
| M13 | 45 | softwareconsumerfintech | Carter Reum, consumer brands + fintech |
Differentiation: Fika is the largest dedicated LA seed fund by AUM ($500M+). While TenOneTen focuses on technical founders attacking legacy industries and Susa (SF) is data-driven analytical, Fika's thesis uniquely centers on operator-investors backing subject matter expert founders. Eva Ho bridges Fika and Susa — she co-founded both firms. Humba (ex-Susa) is a completely different thesis (hard tech). Upfront and M13 lean consumer/brand.