Cambrian Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based early-stage venture capital firm led by former Andreessen Horowitz partner Rex Salisbury, launched its inaugural $20m fintech-focused fund.
Among the fund’s investors are the founders of Nerdwallet, Plaid, Simple, Alloy, Modus, SentiLink, Jeeves, Betterment, Blend, Routable, Trim, LendUp, One, SoFi, Moonpay, LoanPro, Altruist, Melio, and more.
Cambrian plans to invest in 30 companies, with investments of up to $500K at the angel, pre-seed, and seed stage within the fintech sector. Cambrian has made five investments over the last few months, including Keep Financial’s recent seed round.
Through the fund, Salisbury will extend the Cambrian fintech community he established in 2016 to share resources, knowledge, and mentorship among industry peers to the next generations of visionary founders. Initially founded as a passion project outside of his day job as a software engineer at a fintech startup, Salisbury has grown the community to a global network with over 15,000 subscribers, 4,000 meetup attendees, and a Slack community with 1,100+ fintech founders.
Prior to launching the fund, he was a founding partner of the fintech team at Andreessen Horowitz (A16Z), a role he began three years after launching Cambrian in 2016. While at A16Z, he helped build the fintech vertical and invested in a number of deals including Deel and Tally, companies he had previously encountered in his work with Cambrian. In launching the fund, Salisbury is going back to the community roots, where he is able to help founders at the earliest stage.
FinSMEs
26/07/2022