Essence VC, an early stage venture capital firm run by Tim Chen, is raising a new fund.
A SEC filing revealed the new fund. Chen confirmed that Essence is aiming to raise about $7 million for the fund, which is separate from the firm’s $41 million fourth fund raised last year.
Chen said the new fund will allow Essence to lead bigger pre-seed rounds and gives him more flexibility on deployment timeframes.
Chen, who is based in Seattle, said he’s “very excited” about vibe coding and agent infrastructure as the technology continues to evolve and generate higher quality code.
Essence raised its first fund in 2019. The firm focuses on developer tools and infrastructure, given Chen’s background. The University of Washington grad worked at Microsoft and VMware, helped launch open-source cloud startup Mesosphere, and later founded Hyperpilot, an “AIOps” company acquired by Cloudera.
Chen has built a niche around helping technical founders translate research and code into products and go-to-market strategies. Essence has backed Seattle startups including Clarify and MotherDuck. Its portfolio spans across the U.S. and beyond.
Previously: Tim Chen was deemed ‘too nerdy’ for venture capital. Now he runs one of the hottest startup funds in tech.
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