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Articles by Kate
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Kate McAndrew shared thisWant to see the math? Check out the essay my partner Matt Thoms wrote on megafunds vs alpha funds. Linked in the comments 👇
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Kate McAndrew shared thisMy kids “untechnology” thesis just got an $18 billion tailwind. This week, Meta agreed to pay up to $18B to settle claims brought by states over the harm its platforms caused children. It also agreed to two-hour usage limits, restricted notifications during school and nighttime hours, stronger age verification and the option to turn off personalized feeds. These aren’t small safety features. They disrupt the mechanics of the ad-supported business model: more time, more engagement, more data, more ads. I’ve been developing a kids untechnology thesis. A new crop of products are increasingly winning space in my household & on retail shelves: Yoto, Tonies, Tin Can, Buddy, Nex. (For context, tonies is in 50% of German households that have kids, and Nex has sold over 1 million units) They aren’t anti-technology. They use technology to give kids more agency without pulling them into the addictive, algorithmic internet. The best of these businesses have: • Hardware plus recurring revenue through data subscriptions and ongoing content purchases. More stories! More characters! • Incredible giftability. Must look cool under the tree, hit the right price point, be kid loved but grandparent approved. • Real network effects among kids. One kid gets a Tin Can, then their cousins and classmates need one too. • Retro, tactile fun that gets kids off addictive screens without asking them to give up independence or connection. Critical here: I don’t believe “dumbed-down” adult products are the answer. Taking Mom’s phone, removing some features and calling it a kids device feels dead on arrival. Flip phones are one answer—but they’re an old answer, not a new one. The real opportunity is to build technology around childhood itself: more agency, more discovery, more connection to the real world, and much more magic. I’m enjoying meeting smart founders and investors in this category. If this is you, let’s chat!
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Kate McAndrew posted this“When X, it compounds” has displaced the emdash as canary in the AI writing coal mine.
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Kate McAndrew shared thisWhen you wake up so early Claude thinks you’re a night owl.
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Kate McAndrew posted thisHave you or someone you know managed a sub $5m fund via angel list? I want to talk to you!! I’ve only ever invested at funds over $30M but I’m poking around an experimental idea and I want to talk to my might managers who have boldly managed smaller funds! I want to know: - how much did it cost annually during the investment period and the out years? - what worked out of the box and what broke? - any fab service providers? DM me or spill the 🫖 in the comments!
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Kate McAndrew shared thisTwo of my favorite people in venture just closed their Fund I!!!! This is no small achievement ever, but especially in this environment. Congratulations to Dawn Dobras and Margaret Coblentz on Capital F!!!!!Kate McAndrew shared thisThank you to TechCrunch and Dominic-Madori Davis for covering the close of Capital F Fund I (link in comments). The best part of this job isn't the close of a fund, it is getting to live in the future. A future where maternal care is better because of Malama Health. Where trust and safety scales the way it needs to because of Precognition Labs. Where advertising actually works for the businesses paying for it, instead of just funding someone else's capex, because of Stealth Company (that I am so excited about). We get to believe in founders before anyone else will, and stay with them through the parts that don't make it into the pitch deck. It's never just up and to the right. There are hard stretches, wrong turns, decisions that don't look right until eighteen months later. It is a privilege to do this work and support the incredible entrepreneurs we have backed. I get to do it with the best partner I could ask for. Dawn Dobras and I have fun every single day, whether we're having a hard conversation about what makes it into the portfolio or brainstorming swag ideas for next year. We both strive to be at the top of our game, but also want to do it with joy. And I would be remiss to close without thanking the incredible LPs who have backed us. They are the super power behind our fund - operators who have scaled iconic businesses from nothing to millions and billions and are so generous with that experience whether helping us with diligence, mentoring portfolio companies or making introductions that turn into revenue and key hires. Here is to getting to be part of building the future at Capital F!
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Kate McAndrew posted thisAs a working execuitve i think you get to do 3 things: 1. parent 2. hit your work goals 3. a single self care activity If your thing is not contributing to one of these three things, it's not happening.
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Kate McAndrew reposted thisKate McAndrew reposted thisMagnesium is about to change how we build EVs. Why magnesium? It's one of the lightest structural metals that exists with a strength-to-weight ratio that's hard to beat. For EVs, weight is everything: lighter vehicles mean smaller motors, smaller batteries, lighter structure. Estes Energy just announced a battery pack built on exactly that principle, using gigacasting to create a unibody shell that cuts hundreds of components and doubles as thermal management, resulting in one of the most energy-dense packs at scale today. The hard part? Magnesium corrodes in harsh environments. Not to fear. The team at Estes developed new coatings to make it durable enough for these exact applications. The coolest part? Magnesium points to a future that doesn't depend on mining— it's abundant in ocean water, and extraction tech is already being built to harvest it. Proud the back Dustin Grace, David Lai, Cagkan Yildiz, Tolga YILDIZ and the entire Estes team as they build the future of EVs.
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Kate McAndrew shared thisBeing a pre-seed investor means getting to go for the full ride with a founder, from Day 1 to "How I Built This" status. Today, the story of how Laura Modi built Bobbie is immortalized by none other than Guy Raz. Leading the pre-seed round at Bobbie, continuing to double down in each round, and getting to be a part of Laura's board is an honor. My baby was one of the first Bobbie babies, one of the ONE MILLION we have now fed, whose parents we have led away from shame towards what works for their families. Along the way Bobbie has brought me, above all, tremendous friendships. Sarah Hardy, Sara Ahmed Holman, Kim Chappell, Catherine Cuello-Fuente are all Bobbie family who are my family, too. The moms who get it, and get me. If you want to get a peak inside how the best of the best build, listen to this episode!! (linked in the comments)
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisJaclyn Johnson is spilling the 🫖 to Cristina Montemayor at Inc. Magazine on what actually happens when creators join your cap table 💥 “Equity is a permanent asset. You cannot structure a creator relationship around assumptions, follower counts, and good vibes.” Having personally invested in 25+ companies (including Sephora standouts Ceremonia and Crown Affair), Jaclyn points out that early-stage VCs aren't interested in watching marketing dollars go up in smoke on Meta ads anymore. Instead, they're asking founders point-blank: Do you have creators on your cap table? Before you start handing out slices of your company for some social love, you need the real rules of engagement. Jaclyn breaks down the math, the contract traps, and how to protect your equity while turning distribution into real company value. Check out the full article (link in comments)! 👇 Now stay tuned for the Cherub Creator Summit coming to NYC on September 9!! 👀 🚀
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisI'm finalizing my summer reading with Kate McAndrew and @Jane McCarthy's book, “The Goddess Guide to Branding.” This book has such a unique perspective on branding. It goes over eight Greco-Roman goddess archetypes including their energies, values, tastes, what inspires them, and their purpose. Throughout the book, the authors spotlight powerhouse female founders and brand leaders who embody each archetype, and how it shows up in the companies they've built. Some include: Laura Modi (CEO & Co-Founder, Bobbie) Sallie Krawcheck (CEO & Founder, Ellevest) Georgina Gooley (Co-Founder, Billie) Sophie Bambuck (CMO, The North Face) Sali Christeson (CEO & Founder, Argent) Susan Griffin-Black (Co-CEO & Co-Founder, EO Products) Alexandra Fine (CEO & Founder, Dame) Sashee Chandran (CEO & Founder, Tea Drops) After you define your goddess archetype, you build your brand roadmap with who you are as an individual, what you value, and how that ties into the company you build, your brand promise, and how you want your customers to experience your brand. Fun fact: I mostly resonate with Venus, same as Kate. Venus is the goddess of radiance, vision, and splendor. She brings inspiration, beauty, creativity, and joy to everyone she encounters. I love the perspective she brings to venture capital at her investment firm, Baukunst. The German word “Baukunst” literally translates to "building" and "art" which is such a fitting name for a firm that believes in not just providing capital, but building the brand and the founder. I love this framework and think you will too, if you're interested in building a personal or company brand. What other branding books are you loving?
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisThank you Inc. Magazine! So thrilled to have Cherub at the forefront of the influencer/ investing conversation. "Johnson, who has also personally invested in 25 companies, including Sephora best-sellers Ceremonia and Crown Affair, says the directive to add creators to a brand’s cap table is coming directly from early-stage VCs, who are now asking founders point-blank whether they have a creator on their cap table before writing a check. VCs don’t want to watch marketing dollars going up in smoke on Meta ads. A creator equity deal (done right) lowers customer acquisition costs and comes with a built-in audience, which de-risks the investment from a VC perspective." https://lnkd.in/g4inb4qP
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisTop picture is from August 1st, 2017, my first day as a full-time Staff Designer and Community Programming Coordinator at Supplyframe DesignLab. Technically, I joined DesignLab the summer we opened in 2016, though, so I'm counting this as my 10-year anniversary ;) (Sadly, no surviving photos from the intern days other than my first project, the safety glasses case in the second image.) Over the years I've been grateful to grow from intern to Director, and along the way I've gotten to be part of some incredible projects: raising and distributing the largest cash prize pool in Hackaday Prize history, socially impactful open source hardware projects and events around the world, handcrafting the TEDxPasadena stage sign, interviewing some of the most passionate makers out there, and producing hundreds of educational events to make building more accessible to underrepresented communities in the tech space. The bottom picture is from August 1st, 2026, when we officially said goodbye to our space on Del Mar Blvd. It's bittersweet, we'll miss the physical space that's been our creative home base for the past decade, but I'm proud to say we've outgrown it. For the past couple of years, Giovanni and I have run more events outside the lab than in it, because our community has simply outgrown its four walls: from Hackaday Europe in Lecco, to technical workshops at Edge AI Foundation San Diego and Edge Impulse's Imagine Innovators in Amsterdam, to Shenzhen, where we're headed next month. This is the end of one chapter, not the end of our work as DesignLab. I'm excited to step into a new role as Portfolio Development Executive at Supplyframe, where I'll keep building strategic partnerships for our innovator ecosystem and bring the DesignLab ethos to even more creatives and spaces around the world. P.S. Jordon and Thomas are holding my anniversary blooper reel hostage so y'all will just have to enjoy this photo dump. If you want the unreleased files, let em know in the comments ;)
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisDo kids even need tech? Many of us who have spent our careers designing breakthrough technology have also spent years trying to keep devices as far away from our own children as possible. But isn’t there a contradiction in that? The reality is that technology is part of modern family life. A childhood with no tech and a house full of only wooden toys sounds lovely, but for most families, it’s just not realistic. And I actually think the new wave of technology is changing the conversation. At level, we’re increasingly asking not how to keep technology away from kids, but how to design it to genuinely benefit them and their families. Can it get kids moving instead of sitting still? Encourage independence instead of dependence? Spark creativity and play? Help families stay organized? Create connection rather than distraction? “How do we design technology for children without letting technology take over childhood?” I recently sat down with Baukunst to talk about this, and about how being a designer and raising my own kiddos have become deeply intertwined. The feature is a peek into our studio, our passion for play, the kids who have grown up alongside level, and our approach to designing technology for children and families with a lot of intention. Thank you Kate McAndrew, Tyler Mincey, Camille Creighton and Toby Shorin for such a thoughtful conversation. Read the full feature: https://lnkd.in/gvkexpth
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Kate McAndrew liked thisKate McAndrew liked thisExcited to feature POCA in 123 gorgeous Industrious offices across the country throughout this month! It's been a total pleasure to meet their incredible members in communities like Nashville and New York and add some sweetness to their morning. Pssst if your office coffee bar could use a little spruce up, DM me :)
Experience & Education
Volunteer Experience
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Volunteer
The World Fellowship Center
- Present 20 years 4 months
Civil Rights and Social Action
The World Fellowship Center's mission is to promote peace and social justice through education and dialogue inspired by nature. I have volunteered at World Fellowship on and off since 2006, spending summers during my college years doing everything from cleaning rooms to managing the dining hall and running the staff. I continue to return to World Fellowship with my family, volunteering labor up-fitting cabins, advising on outreach strategies, and harvesting food from the gardens.
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Mentor
VentureWell
- Present 9 years 9 months
Civil Rights and Social Action
VentureWell is on a mission to cultivate a pipeline of inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs driven to solve the world’s biggest challenges and to create lasting impact.
We foster collaboration among the best minds from research labs, classrooms, and beyond to advance innovation and entrepreneurship education and to provide unique opportunities for STEM students and researchers to fully realize their potential to improve the world. -
Mentor
Techstars
- Present 10 years 9 months
Techstars IoT (Internet of Things) has partnered with industry leaders GE, Bosch, PwC, SAP, Verizon and next47 (Siemens) to support the most innovative high growth enterprise and industrial focused IoT startups. The program is based in NYC and attracts founders from around the world.
Publications
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The Goddess Guide to Branding
PeakPoint Press
See publicationIn The Goddess Guide to Branding, brand strategist Jane McCarthy and venture capitalist Kate McAndrew introduce you to eight goddess archetypes whose timeless energies are alive in successful brands today. From there, they lead you on a journey to build your own brand in a way that is authentic to your company and ultra-appealing to your community.
Throughout the book, female founders and brand leaders share what they’ve learned on their own brand-building journeys. It’s truly a…In The Goddess Guide to Branding, brand strategist Jane McCarthy and venture capitalist Kate McAndrew introduce you to eight goddess archetypes whose timeless energies are alive in successful brands today. From there, they lead you on a journey to build your own brand in a way that is authentic to your company and ultra-appealing to your community.
Throughout the book, female founders and brand leaders share what they’ve learned on their own brand-building journeys. It’s truly a powerhouse collective of women invested in seeing you succeed:
Laura Modi (CEO & Co-Founder Bobbie)
Sallie Krawcheck (CEO & Founder Ellevest)
Georgina Gooley (Co-Founder Billie)
Sophie Bambuck (CMO The North Face)
Sali Christeson (CEO & Founder Argent)
Susan Griffin-Black (Co-CEO & Co-Founder EO Products)
Alexandra Fine (CEO & Founder Dame)
Sashee Chandran (CEO & Founder Tea Drops)
and more…
The branding method shared in the book is intuitive and inspired. You don’t need an MBA or a background in marketing to "get" it. You’ll be showered with ideas at every step. And you’ll walk away with a complete blueprint for your brand, so your business can flourish and endure.
If you’re starting your brand from scratch, this book is for you. If you’re looking to enrich your existing brand, this book is for you. If you need to make a pivot and evolve your brand, this book is for you too.
Projects
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Hardware Workshop
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See projectHardware Workshop brought startup founders and seasoned startup and investors together to share knowledge around building great products and companies. From 2015-2019, we hosted workshops in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, London and Hong Kong. The workshop was founded by Marc Barros and I proudly contributed to their cult following during this time.
Organizations
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Women in Hardware
Founder
- PresentSince 2015, Women in Hardware has brought together exceptional founders, investors, engineers, designers, product leaders and manufacturers building ambitious companies at the intersection of the digital and physical worlds. Learn more here: http://www.womeninhardware.io/
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San Francisco Bay Area Factory Tours
Organizer
I facilitate factory tours around the bay area to help expose people to high volume manufacturing. I regularly host tours at places like: Jabil, Flextronics, high tech PCB manufacturers, sheet metal factories, electronics manufacturers.
Other similar profiles
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Daniel Dart
🚨NEW EPISODE: Recorded live at FUTURE TITANS 2026 - Jeff Perry of Carta sat down with the iconic Seth Levine, co-founder of Foundry. Seth has been in venture for 25 years, built Foundry from scratch as an emerging manager himself, and has backed about 50 emerging manager funds through his fund of funds. He has genuinely seen every side of this table. They went deep on building Foundry, why VCs are in the influence business, not the decision business, and why the concentration problem in venture is not only bad for LPs, but also for the innovation ecosystem overall. And why Seth's new book, Capital Evolution, is so important for the future of America. 🎧 Links to listen... Apple: https://lnkd.in/ehQUQ2EM Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eU4FExpg
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Vivian Bertseka
Incredibly proud of the BlueLayer team for building the digital infrastructure that supports carbon project developers to deliver quality credits to the market 💥 Our partnership with Senken is another step toward that mission. By connecting project data and inventory directly with a trusted network of active buyers, we’re removing friction and making the carbon market more transparent, accessible, and efficient for everyone involved. It’s exciting to see this partnership lay the groundwork for a truly digital, scalable, and trusted carbon market. #BlueLayer #Senken #CarbonMarkets #ClimateTech
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Anjli Jain
**Navigating Legal Challenges in AgriTech: The Monarch Tractor Case** As the agriculture technology space continues to innovate, it’s crucial for startups like Monarch Tractor to address operational realities alongside ambitious goals. Legal disputes over autonomy can impact investor confidence and market growth. At ElevenX Capital, we believe that understanding the regulatory landscape is just as important as the technology itself. How can startups better navigate such legal waters while ensuring they remain competitive? #investing #innovation #venturecapital #entrepreneurship
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