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Leslie Feinzaig of Seattle venture firm Graham & Walker speaks at a Technology Alliance event last month. Feinzaig started a new group called VCsforKamala. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
A new initiative led by Seattle venture capitalist Leslie Feinzaig — aiming to garner support for presidential hopeful Kamala Harris — has attracted signatures from Mark Cuban, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, and more than 100 other venture capitalists.
The pledge — dubbed VCsforKamala — comes in response to recent support for Donald Trump from deep-pocketed entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen, sparking intense political debate across the tech industry.
In an interview with GeekWire, Feinzaig said she isn’t typically “openly political” but became frustrated over the past several weeks.
“There are a lot of us that just want to live in a stable, peaceful democracy and have access to government to discuss the things we care about without slinging mud at each other,” she said. “I felt the dominant voices were not speaking for most of us.”
In a statement published Wednesday morning, the VCsforKamala group said that they are “are pro-business, pro-American dream, pro-entrepreneurship, and pro-technological progress. We also believe in democracy as the backbone of our nation.”
The group encouraged others to sign the pledge, and support Harris with their votes and financial resources. The sign-up page states: “Let’s show founders that not all V.C.s have turned MAGA,” according to The New York Times, which reported on the VCsforKamala pledge on Wednesday.
Things got rolling with the new effort last week when Feinzaig posted a tweet noting: “Gonna start ‘VCs for democracy.’ Who’s in?”
The response was strong. Within a few days, Cuban, the billionaire Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks minority owner, and Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn, signed up. “There was no going back from there,” Feinzaig said.
The pledge now includes signatures from leaders at top venture firms such as Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures, Ron Conway of SV Angel, Brad Feld of Foundry, and many others. As of Wednesday, there were 110 venture capitalists representing about $150 billion in assets on the list.
A handful of Seattle-area investors have signed the pledge so far, including Jonathan Azoff of SNØCAP, Gillian Muessig of Sybilla Masters Fund, and Jessica Kamada of Swizzle Ventures.
Feinzaig said she and a small team of volunteers behind the pledge reached out to more than 500 investors over the weekend. Many shared support but declined to sign because of fund policies, Feinzaig said.
“I run my own VC firm, so for better or worse I have more freedom to speak my mind,” Feinzag said. “But that’s not the case in a lot of our industry.”
The VCsforKamala page also encourages investors to donate to Vice President Harris, who has become the unofficial Democratic presidential nominee following President Biden’s decision earlier this month to step aside in the race.
Feinzaig detailed her journey as an immigrant on the GeekWire Summit stage in 2017. She was born in Costa Rica and moved to the U.S. for college.
This is the second U.S. election Feinzaig will be voting in.
“Over the past few weeks, like so many of you, I’ve watched countless venture capital power players announce their support of Donald Trump,” Feinzaig wrote on X. “Many of them are VCs I respect and admire. And I’m not so much surprised about seeing VCs express conservative viewpoints — some of which I share. But this particular election — there are much more existential issues at stake.”
Feinzaig worked at Microsoft, Big Fish, and Julep before launching a startup called Venture Kits. She organized Seattle-based Female Founders Alliance in 2017 out of a group of women who wanted to help female entrepreneurs grow companies and land funding. The group evolved and launched its VC arm, Graham & Walker, which raised a $10 million fund in 2021.
