Emerging Manager Q&A: Jordan Wan about $30M CoFound Fund II
Solo GP Jordan Wan turned GTM expertise into an oversubscribed $30M Fund II anchored by top institutions. I asked Jordan 10 questions about how he did it
Hey folks,
This is Pavel, welcome to a new edition of our Fireside Chats with Emerging Fund Managers where we ask recently-closed fund managers 10 rapid-fire questions about their fundraising journey.
Today’s guest: Jordan Wan, Founder and General Partner of CoFound.
About The Firm
CoFound is an early-stage VC firm founded in 2019 by Jordan Wan, an MIT engineer and former Founder/CEO of Formative and longtime NYC startup operator. Based in Denver, Wan focuses on leading/co-leading pre-seed investments in vertical AI across the US and Canada – with one differentiator: helping founders build repeatable go-to-market motions from day one.
Results validated the approach: early wins like Grow Therapy, Garner Health, and QA Wolf, lead to oversubscription and a backlog of LPs waiting for Fund II. Several LPs verbally committed before Jordan even officially kicked off the fundraise – a result of treating fundraising as continuous relationship-building, not episodic campaigning.
The active raise took ~6 months from first to final close, but Jordan learned something counterintuitive: “Performance and DPI is not enough in this market. It’s just as important to have strong GP legibility. It has to be easy for an LP to backchannel you and get a positive impression of your personal brand and reputation.”
Jordan found that in-person meetings were critical after reflecting on his early naivete to try and pitch IC’s over Zoom. Portfolio strength gets attention, but LPs commit after spending time with you and entrusting you’d be a good steward of capital.
Fund II writes $500k-$1.5M checks at pre-seed and seed, co-investing with boutiques, large seed and multi-stage funds. The LP base includes ~50 investors – institutions making up 2/3 of the fund (Cendana, Level, Fourbridge, FirstLook, Moses, and Slipstream), with the remaining third coming from private institutions, founders, and executives in Jordan’s network. The fund doesn’t reserve for follow on and optimizes for upfront ownership and high conviction alignment with founders.
Here is our fireside chat:
What is your fund’s superpower in one sentence?
Helping founders build a repeatable GTM motion.
How long did the active fundraising process take?
~6 months.
Did anybody help you during fundraising: existing LPs, fellow GPs, placement agents?
Existing LPs and other GPs are helpful. We also had a backlog of LPs from prior oversubscribed fund that also referred folks.
How many LPs are in the final cap table, and what’s their breakdown?
~50 in total, a group of institutions accounted for over 2/3 of the total fund. We allocated the remaining to helpful founders & industry executives in our network.
What was the fastest check – time from first call to signed subscription?
We had several verbal commitments before we even kicked off the fundraise, but took about a month to finalize our LPA before accepting signatures.
What were the top 3 reasons LPs said “NO”?
For Fund II, the size of the fund was still the main reason LPs passed. For most institutions, it was still prohibitively too small. Otherwise, it was just about getting LPs comfortable with a solo GP / generalist fund model.
What were the top 3 signals that an LP was truly interested in your fund?
Warm intros through other GP/LPs was a very high indicator. Also a good sign if they've backed other founder-centric fund strategies like CoFound.
What did LPs actually pay close attention to during fundraising?
Have found that performance and DPI is not enough in this market. It's just as important to have strong GP legibility. It has to be easy for an LP to backchannel you and get a positive impression of your personal brand and reputation.
What’s the biggest mistake fund managers make when fundraising?
Fundraising is a continuous, core responsibility. It's not an episodic thing you do at the end of a fund lifecycle. Most LPs have a backlog of great managers they've gotten to know. GPs have a scarcity of LP intros they can make. So you have to really spend time investing in relationships well in advance of fundraising. It's very easy for folks to tell when you're approaching things transactionally.
What advice would you give to your future self and to other emerging managers about fundraising?
Be patient and do more in-person meetings. Don't just rely on your portfolio strength. Venture investing has so much nuance and LPs have so many options, you have to give people a chance to get to know you through time.
Jordan is also looking for founding VC investor, so if you’d like to learn more, check out his Substack and LinkedIn post.
Learn more about CoFound: Fund II Announcement
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