Nicholas Kim

@kirbyman01 @a16z Congratulations Bryan!! :)

PERSONAL UPDATE: After 5+ years, I am leaving @a16z to start a fund! This was the toughest career decision of my life. I learned from the best partners and was privileged to work with incredible founders. So why leave? It is simply time to build. More to come on this.

@0xjohnkim Congratulations team! Best is yet to come :)

We raised $65M to build an agentic hiring platform that makes hiring as easy as pressing a button AI is accelerating faster than anyone imagined. As intelligence, data, and software commoditize, one thing becomes exponentially more valuable: human ingenuity That’s the future that @Paraform is building towards

Today, Pensive AI-assisted grading is officially coming out of closed beta with $6.8M in Seed funding to help instructors reclaim their most valuable resource: time. Grading should be an extension of your teaching, not a chore that eats your weekends. But as class sizes grow and resources shrink, instructors are being forced to trade mentorship for paperwork. Pensive gives instructors that time back so they can focus on students, research, and the kind of support only they can provide. The impact is already real: Pensive has graded over 3 million questions, saving countless hours for 1,000+ instructors from @UCBerkeley , @Columbia , @ArizonaState, and 100 other institutions. Our seed investment is a commitment to the future of the classroom. Our round was led by @MayfieldFund , with participation from @reachfund , @Antifund, Sequoia Capital scout fund, a16z scout fund, BASS Ventures, Vela Partners, @vladtenev (co-founder of Robinhood), @karimatiyeh (co-founder of Ramp), Arjun & @sergeykarayev (founders of Gradescope), and many others. If you're curious about how Pensive can help in your classes, comment below for an extended free trial!

@yoonseok_yang Congratulations!! Go team :)

@bonatsos @generalcatalyst Congratulations Niko! Excited for what's to come :)

After 15 wonderful years @generalcatalyst I am moving on to new adventures. The best days for GC are ahead! Super grateful to every single one of my teammates that I had the fortune to work with over the years. I learned a lot. Very thankful to our limited partners too for their long-term support. Equally importantly, it's been the privilege of a lifetime to work with so many inspiring tech startup founders from the very early days.

(3/3) My path (and those of countless others) today would look very different without his kindness and genuine belief in people just starting out. I know I am not alone. Grateful to be able to call him a mentor and role model investor, and incredibly excited to see what's next!

(2/3) Over the following years, I've learned from Niko what it means for venture to be a truly apprenticeship business, what staying truly curious looks like 15 years into an investing career, and that cold emails from college students are (hopefully?) worth reading :).

(1/3) In 2023, I cold emailed Niko out of the blue to see if he might be willing to take me on as an intern over a quarter in New York. His only ask was what startups I loved and why. Two months later, I had the privilege of getting to learn venture at GC through his guidance.

@tkkong @tryramp Congratulations TK, and excited for what’s to come :)

After 5.5 years and selling my startup to @tryramp, I wrapped up my time last month. I first joined Ramp as employee #20 in March 2020 where I was an early designer and product lead. I left 2.5 years in to found Venue, a procurement automation company that Sequoia backed and Ramp acquired a year later. With the Venue team, we led Ramp’s procurement product from inception to thousands of customers and billions in payment volume. And most recently over the summer, I joined our Applied AI team to help start @RampLabs and launch Agent Fill and Ramp Sheets. I’m grateful to have been a part of the Ramp journey. I saw what exceptional looks like and how that’s evolved from a 20-person startup to a $32B company. Many people mention eng velocity as the key to Ramp’s success but it all starts with the people. Eric & Karim are world class recruiters and frequently take bets on early talent. Hiring well is one of the greatest compounders in company building - nearly all of Ramp’s early hires were referrals. Even at its scale today, I’m amazed at how much time they prioritize on recruiting. Thank you @eglyman @karimatiyeh for taking a bet on me twice, @genejaelee for being my Korean older brother, and @geoffintech @diegozaks for their product & design masterclass. As for what’s next, I’m excited to share more soon.

Grateful for the chance to host the latest Korean founder lunch at the @BainCapVC SF office with @rkhkimx (thx as always)! So much fun to host the amazing @soohoonchoi, @jeremyjsuh, @hiddnest, @josephnimz99, @Jaihoo7777, @thisisdanhan, @sohan_zhang, @junelee___, @yoonseok_yang, Minjune, Eric, Cobb, Alex, Max, Andy, & Gun. More to come-- please DM anytime if of interest!

@peggy_wang @digipals_app Congratulations!! Excited for what’s to come :)

1/ Formally announcing the launch of @digipals_app We believe in a world where AI can be used to enhance human relationships and make us more social

@loubohan @chemistry_fund Congratulations :)

We just had the one year anniversary of @chemistry_fund and I have to say it's still the best job I've ever had. It did remind me of taking a risk on a startup when I joined a year ago before the fund close and pre-launch. We had no office and I even asked the partners whether we were gonna have health insurance. But one year in I still feel like this team has some of the smartest, kindest, and funniest people out there. We are a very familial and banterous team (to the point where an airline stewardess told @kshenster and I to quiet down on a flight) and our office is filled with laughter everyday. The job is a privilege because you really do get paid to meet incredibly smart and ambitous people while learning about how the world works and the lives that shaped them. I always like to know where someone grew up, their family, and even their religion when I meet them because they all shape a person's worldview. People always remind me that this job has long feedback cycles and delayed rewards (a decade at least) so I'm always cognizant that I better enjoy every single moment intrinsically because my beloved portfolio ain't gonna IPO tomorrow (though hopeuflly next month given their growth). Very excited to continue building this institution and leaning into the Chemistry between people and our Chemistry as a team. @ethankurz @Mark_Goldberg_ @kshenster @ivory_tang

Today, we're launching Village to let investors orchestrate teams of agents to scale their judgment. Three years ago, we bet that both humans and agents would need new tools to fulfill the promise of LLMs to transform research. Village is that tool, the first IDE for research built from the ground up so your agents can answer bigger questions, learn from your feedback, and build the AI research infrastructure for your firm. We're starting with public equity research, enabled by our EDGAR and earnings call transcript datasets, and we'd love to hear what use-cases you'd like to see next. The feeling of manipulating huge amounts of information and collaborating with hundreds of Assistants is really special, and I'm excited for you to experience it. Our beta sign up link is below!

@john_sungjin Love to see it— huge congratulations!! :)

Always great to host the latest few Korean founder lunches at the @BainCapVC SF office with @rkhkimx (thx as always)! Grateful to @soohoonchoi, @junelee___, @snow_w_lee, @jeremyjsuh, @skyumk, @hur, @rachelsupark, @yoonseok_yang, @hlynakim, @joonseochang, @michaelhyunkim, @mint0themax, @charlesjavelona, @harvpark, Luke, Jess, Minjune, Daniel, Enoch, & Paul for joining us. More to come-- please DM anytime if of interest!

@michejafang @Lux_Capital Huge congratulations!! :)

Huge congratulations to @0xjohnkim, @lijeffrey39, and the rest of the @paraformtalent team!! I remember being struck by John's vision when we first met-- betting on recruiters when everyone else was writing them off. Getting to watch this approach pay off has been incredible, and the customer love from both founders and recruiters speaks volumes. The best days are yet to come :)

Huge congratulations @stevenl! Always grateful for your mentorship and excited to see the incredible founders who’ll get to benefit from your work through @SevenStars_VC

@AndreaShuyuWang @generalcatalyst @svangel Congratulations Andrea!! :)

After two amazing years at @generalcatalyst, I’m excited to join @svangel as a General Partner to continue backing the most ambitious founders at the earliest stages. I have long admired SVA’s storied history and founder reputation, and I’m thrilled to work with the amazing team (@RonConway, @conwayronny, @topherc, @ashvinb, @mikesholiu, @souravgupta97).