Founded in 2013, Canvas Ventures is a boutique venture capital firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area with $835 million in assets under management. Canvas leads Series A investments in key areas including Fintech (Brace, Gabi, Possible Finance), Digital Health (Vida, Airvet), Enterprise (Luminar/LAZR, Robocorp, Vendia), Logistics (Transfix, MasonHub), and Marketplaces (Darwin Homes, Zola). Rebecca Lynn, Paul Hsiao, Gary Little, and Mike Ghaffary serve as the firm’s general partners, and they are also known for investments made prior to joining Canvas, including Lending Club (LC), Doximity, MuleSoft (MULE), Check (acquired by Intuit), Upwork (UPWK), and Houzz.
We are mission-driven investors
We work as a team to help visionary founders build enduring companies of value and integrity to make the world a better place for all.
We are fanatic about the early stage
You have to be just a little crazy to love the early stage. That’s us. We focus solely on leading Series A rounds with flexible investment size, between $5 million and $20 million in capital. We have proven that this kind of focus allows us to do more for our founders—and ultimately drive more valuable outcomes.
We are fully in your corner, and always on
We structure our fund size so we have time and focus for you. We lead rounds in a discreet 8 to 10 investments a year; this translates to an average of 7 board seats per partner—half of what you might find elsewhere. This allows us to be devoted and engaged partners to our founders as they hire and scale a team, develop a go-to-market plan, and navigate the inevitable twists and turns that characterize the earliest days of building.
We are accomplished builders, ourselves
We are four experienced board members with 45 years of collective operating experience; three of four partners are former founders/CEOs. As entrepreneurs-turned-investors who have grown and exited several billion-dollar companies, we know what it actually takes to achieve and sustain market-defining growth through every stage, from strategy through scale. Our background allows us to blend empathy for the journey with solutions derived from extensive pattern-recognition.
We are curious learners, always passionate about expanding our knowledge
We follow a thesis-driven approach to investing, scouting and securing fields ripe for disruption. This allows us to make quick decisions when we see something we believe in. We leverage our expertise where relevant to help founders find untapped value in fintech, marketplaces, digital health, new enterprise, and other emerging sectors. We don’t claim to have all the answers, but we always know who to talk to and where to look.