Goodwater Capital

Goodwater Capital is a venture capital firm dedicated to empowering exceptional entrepreneurs globally to create positive change through consumer technology. The firm focuses on investing in consumer technology companies across seven key sectors: housing, healthcare, food, financial services, transportation, education, and entertainment. Their mission is to measurably improve billions of lives by supporting companies that address everyday challenges faced by people.

The firm's investment approach comprises three main components: Genesis, Capital, and Collective. The Genesis program democratizes access to entrepreneurial guidance by providing seed-stage founders with startup curriculum, data, software, insights, wisdom, and a curated community. Capital involves investing in consumer technology startups that are shaping global culture and transforming the economy, offering founders access to decades of experience, tools for building successful products, and a like-minded community. Collective reinvests profits back into the firm's network of companies through grant funding, enabling portfolio companies to deliver their products to underserved communities at affordable prices or for free. This approach aims to improve access to scalable, high-quality services for those in need while embedding an ethos of service into the core of a business from the earliest stages.

Goodwater Capital has established itself as a leader in consumer technology venture capital with a proven track record of successful investments. The firm's global portfolio spans a number of the most impactful consumer tech startups of the past decade, including social media company musical.ly (acquired by Bytedance, China/US), fintech super app Toss (South Korea), ethnic grocery eCommerce leader Weee! (California), fintech disruptor Stash (New York), global live entertainment platform Fever (Spain/UK), neighborhood social app Karrot (South Korea), British neobank Monzo (UK), 10-minute delivery standout Getir (Turkey), and health tech innovator Everly Health (Texas). The firm's partners also made early investments in Coupang, Facebook, Kakao, Spotify, and Twitter before launching Goodwater. The firm's consumer-only sector focus enables it to take a systematic global approach to investing, actively participating in key consumer tech innovation hubs across North America, Europe, North Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, leveraging a global perspective to share best practices across the portfolio and help companies win their markets. The global community of Goodwater CEOs and leaders gathers regularly in person and online to share best practices via Masterclasses taught by functional experts and small group squads designed to boost each company's performance in specific focus areas including customer acquisition, conversion, engagement, retention, and monetization. In the last year alone, over 1,400 Goodwater founders and executives attended or viewed the firm's Masterclasses over 5,000 times.

Goodwater's team has invested in and operated global consumer tech giants like Coupang, Twitter, Kakao, Facebook, Activision Blizzard, Toss, and Spotify, uniquely positioning the firm to invest in the best global opportunities and help entrepreneurs win in large, competitive markets. Goodwater provides tactical, hands-on support to companies solving problems common to consumer-tech startups including: How do I acquire customers? How do I engage them deeply in my product or service? How do I retain those customers and keep them happy over time? How do I build a healthy and scalable business through eCommerce, services, or ads? Since its inception, Goodwater has invested heavily in proprietary software that enables the firm to identify and invest in the best companies and help to accelerate their growth. The firm's software-enabled platform, powered by proprietary insights on consumer tech trends, enables the firm to track millions of products globally and understand how consumers are adopting new technologies. Its team of engineers, data scientists, and product managers builds software tools to help founders boost performance across their most important KPIs. Goodwater has 79 venture and growth investments and the world's largest dedicated consumer tech seed portfolio with over 600 seed deals across more than 50 countries. In addition to Founders Chi-Hua Chien and Eric Kim, Goodwater's investing partnership includes Coddy Johnson, Hatim Khety, Jin Oh, and Vivek Subramanian. To join the largest consumer tech platform dedicated to serving founders and teams globally, reach out at info@goodwatercap.com. Founders of seed-stage companies can apply to Goodwater's Genesis program directly through our website.