Foothill Ventures Research Document
Investment Thesis
Foothill Ventures is a technology-focused venture fund backing technical teams working on breakthrough products. The firm invests in seed stage companies that demonstrate technical differentiation - meaning one of their major reasons for future success is technical or product-level superiority. They explicitly seek entrepreneurs pursuing world-changing breakthroughs across three major domains: software, life science, and deep tech.
Core Investment Strategy
Sector Focus: Foothill Ventures operates across three interconnected areas:
- Software - Enterprise software, developer tools, AI/ML applications, cybersecurity, robotics automation
- Life Sciences - Drug discovery, therapeutics, medical devices, genomics, biotech
- Deep Tech - Semiconductors, photonics, materials science, battery technology, robotics, autonomous systems
The firm has noted increasing interest in "AI to Infrastructure" investments - pursuing this theme from the application layer (AI/ML apps) through software infrastructure to multiple hardware layers (semiconductors, photonics, computing architecture).
Stage Preferences and Check Size
Investment Stages: Pre-seed, Seed (preferred), and Series A
Check Sizes:
- Pre-seed: $250K-$500K
- Seed: $500K-$3M (most active)
- Series A: $3M-$10M
Foothill targets ownership positions of 15-20% at seed stage and participates in follow-on rounds, with reserves typically allocated at 50% of fund.
Lead Tendency
Lead Investor - Foothill Ventures has a strong tendency to lead rounds, particularly at seed stage. They actively participate in Series A rounds and maintain follow-on reserves for portfolio companies.
Founder Preferences
Foothill specifically focuses on three types of founders:
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Strong Technical Founders - First criteria is quality of founding team, particularly favoring strong technologists with consistent past record of leadership success
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Diverse Founders - The firm has had great success betting on:
- Immigrant founders (cross-border perspective)
- Female founders
- PhD founders (especially important given their deep tech focus)
- Teams with cross-disciplinary composition
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Cross-Disciplinary Approach - Believe very large opportunities are created when two disciplines collide. Many top investments are in cross-disciplinary areas like:
- Autonomous vehicles (automotive + software + AI)
- Synthetic biology (biology + chemistry + computational)
- Medical devices (engineering + biology + materials science)
Decision Process and Timeline
Decision Process: Partnership-based approach with rapid turnaround
- Speed: Try to give responses back to entrepreneurs quickly (usually reject decision within days of first meeting, investment decision within 3 weeks)
- Transparency: Give real reasons for interest or lack thereof
- Systems + People: Invested in tools and systems for efficient support, but also deeply committed investors who work personally with founders
- Network Activation: Over portfolio history, invested in 350+ companies; founders represent powerful network across domains and technologies
Team Structure and Expertise
Leadership & General Partners:
- Dr. Xuhui Shao - Tsinghua/U Minnesota PhD, ex-Yahoo VP & Turn CTO, AI & Enterprise software expert (11 patents)
- Dr. Jinlin Wang - Tsinghua/U Connecticut PhD, Auryc CEO, Optimization & Enterprise software expert (7 patents)
- Eric Rosenblum - Harvard/MIT MBA, ex-SmartPay CEO, Google Product Director, Palantir Product Lead, Big data & cybersecurity expert (2 patents)
- Dr. Michael Jin - Tsinghua/Stanford PhD, IGC & SSI/iWatt co-founder, Biotech & IC expert (50 patents)
Investment Team:
- Charles Ling - Deep Tech Investment Director, former investment banker
- Sophia Yu - Software Investment Associate, Yale MBA
- Dr. Lu Wang - Life Sciences Investor, PhD Biochemistry/Biophysics, ex-ThermoFisher, Linear Capital
Operating Partners & Venture Partners:
- Phoebe Fan - Operating Partner, ex-Amazon, Deeplearning.ai, AI Fund
- Dr. Ning Li - Materials science & Medtech robotics expert (9 patents)
- Dr. Biao He - UCSF Professor, Oncology/Therapeutics/Diagnostics expert (40+ patents)
- John Matheny - ex-Yahoo SVP/CTO, Microsoft Partner/GM, Enterprise software expert (22 patents)
- Dr. Richard Liu - ex-Google, Leap.ai co-founder/CEO, Web3/Fintech/AI expert
- Dr. Hong Tang - Alibaba Cloud Founding Chief Architect, Cloud infrastructure/AI expert
- Wenxiang Ma - ex-PTC SVP, Arena Solutions CTO, Enterprise software/DevOps expert
- John Wang - Dashbase co-founder/CEO, ex-Twitter/LinkedIn engineer, Big data/Observability expert
- James Chen - ex-Netskope/BedRock VP Engineering, Cybersecurity & Cloud expert (20+ patents)
Key Characteristics: All partners spent most of their careers as operators; keenly aware of what help is needed and what isn't. The team combines deep technical expertise (50+ patents across leadership, extensive PhD representation) with operational experience.
Recent Activity and Fund Status
Fund: Foothill Ventures Fund III closed above target at $110M (target was $100M)
Recent Investments (2025-2026):
- January 2026: Aether Fuels (Convertible Note)
- December 2025: Multiple investments including Lucidean, Novolinc
- Throughout 2025: 15+ investments across all three sectors
- Notable recent: Synfini, Ryght AI, CarbonSix robotics, and multiple AI infrastructure plays
Fund Status: Actively deploying Fund III with strong momentum in AI infrastructure investments
Notable Portfolio Companies
Highlighted Companies:
- Neural Galaxy - Personalized brain mapping using rs-fMRI (Seed investment)
- WeRide - Autonomous taxi fleet with permits in China, US, UAE, Singapore (Seed investment, 25M autonomous km traveled)
- MemVerge - Big Memory computing (800x faster load times)
- Metalenz - World's first metasurface lens replacing conventional optics (1000x smaller than human hair)
Sector Distribution:
- 80+ portfolio companies in Deep Tech (semiconductors, photonics, battery tech, materials science, robotics)
- 60+ in Life Sciences (therapeutics, genomics, medical devices, drug discovery)
- 70+ in Software (enterprise, developer tools, AI/ML, cybersecurity, infrastructure)
Notable Exits: BuildKite (acquired by Atlassian), LogStream (acquired by Datadog), Loftium, Cardea Bio, OmniML
Value-Add & Support Model
How Foothill Adds Value:
- Strategic Guidance - Work closely on company strategy, financing, hiring, business development
- Community Building - Built community around portfolio of 350+ companies; mostly technical founders creating network for collaboration and support
- China-US Bridge - Skilled at bridging gaps between China and US for financing and business development
- Operational Support - Willing to dive deep into technical challenges and help clear the way
- Board Participation - Active board members providing scientific expertise and patient capital for long-term ventures
Portfolio Support Systems:
- Recruiting tools
- Knowledge databases
- Founder network activation
- Technical consulting (given deep expertise of partners)
Location & Operations
Headquarters: Los Altos, California (280 2nd Street, Los Altos, CA 94022) Geographic Focus: Primarily US, with strong focus on China (hence ex-Tsingyuan branding), selective Europe and Asia-Pacific Operations: Founder-friendly, partner-operated fund with deep technical bench
Website & Communications
Website: https://foothill.ventures Domain: foothill.ventures Contact: Contact@Foothill.Ventures Social: LinkedIn (foothillventures), Twitter (@FoothillVenture) Content: Medium blog (medium.com/foothill-ventures) with articles on technical founder preferences, diversity, cross-disciplinary investing
Notable Positioning
Founder-Friendly Approach: The firm positions itself as "founder friendly" with clear values:
- Make decisions quickly
- Be transparent with real reasons
- Believe in combination of systems and people
- Power of network activation
- Here to serve - clear the way for founder success
Anti-Thesis: Explicitly avoid consumer apps, pure hardware plays without software, non-technical founding teams
Historical Context
Foothill Ventures is the rebranded version of Tsingyuan Ventures (announced in a medium article by Eric Rosenblum). The rebranding reflects the firm's evolution from focusing on Chinese ventures to a truly global investment thesis with US headquarters, while maintaining deep expertise in cross-border and immigrant founders.