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Kevin Thau is a General Partner at Spark Capital, a prominent venture capital firm. He is known for his extensive background in consumer technology, having previously co-founded Jelly and served as VP of Business and Product at Twitter.
Kevin Thau primarily invests in companies within the consumer internet, mobile platforms, social applications, and marketplace sectors. He focuses on businesses that create compelling user experiences and leverage network effects.
Kevin Thau works as a General Partner at Spark Capital, a leading venture capital firm with offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco. He contributes to the firm's investment strategy and portfolio management.
Kevin Thau is a General Partner at Spark Capital based in San Francisco, California. Before transitioning to venture capital in 2015, he served as Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Twitter, where he launched the platform's initial mobile application and managed early partnerships. Previously, he was the seventh employee at Software.com, contributing to the deployment of mobile messaging software across more than one billion devices. At Spark Capital, which manages over $15 billion in assets, Thau focuses on early-stage consumer and enterprise investments, leading the Series A round for Discord and serving on its board of directors. He also served as the first investor in Ctrl Labs, a neural interface startup that was acquired by Facebook in 2019. His current focus remains on identifying and scaling early-stage consumer internet, mobile, and artificial intelligence startups.
Kevin Thau stands as a prominent General Partner at Spark Capital, a leading venture capital firm renowned for its early-stage investments in technology companies. At Spark, Kevin plays a pivotal role in identifying and nurturing the next generation of innovative consumer-focused businesses. His investment thesis is deeply rooted in his operational background, focusing on areas such as consumer internet, mobile platforms, social applications, and dynamic marketplaces. He seeks out companies that are building compelling user experiences and leveraging network effects to create lasting value.
Before joining Spark Capital, Kevin Thau had a distinguished career marked by significant contributions to some of the most influential technology companies of our time. He was a co-founder and COO of Jelly, a social search startup acquired by Pinterest, demonstrating his entrepreneurial spirit and ability to build and scale consumer products. Prior to Jelly, Kevin served as the Vice President of Business and Product at Twitter, where he was instrumental in shaping the company's mobile strategy and product development during a period of explosive growth. His tenure at Twitter, and even earlier at Odeo, the company from which Twitter emerged, provided him with invaluable insights into the intricacies of building and scaling global consumer platforms. His career also includes experience at CNET and Excite@Home, further solidifying his foundation in internet and media.
Kevin's operational experience gives him a unique perspective as an investor, allowing him to deeply understand the challenges and opportunities faced by founders. He is known for his hands-on approach and his ability to provide strategic guidance to portfolio companies. His notable investments at Spark Capital reflect his focus on high-growth consumer and infrastructure plays. These include companies like Discord, the popular communication platform; Chime, a leading challenger bank; Ethos, a modern life insurance company; Postscript, an SMS marketing platform for e-commerce; Vercel, a front-end cloud platform; Substack, a newsletter platform for writers; and Cameo, a platform for personalized celebrity messages. These investments underscore his knack for identifying companies with strong product-market fit and significant potential for disruption.
Through his work at Spark Capital, Kevin Thau continues to be a driving force in the venture capital landscape, empowering visionary entrepreneurs to build the next wave of impactful consumer technologies.
