Hustle Fund

Hustle Fund is a San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed venture capital firm founded in 2017 by Elizabeth Yin, a former managing partner at 500 Global, and Eric Bahn, investing at the very earliest stages of company formation with initial checks from $25,000 to $500,000 in technology startups globally, emphasizing speed of decision-making and founder support over conventional diligence processes that can take weeks or months. The firm's name reflects its core investment thesis: that the most important predictor of startup success is not the quality of the idea or the market size but the hustle, speed, and relentlessness of the founding team, and that the investors who can identify this characteristic before it is obvious will generate the highest returns. Hustle Fund has made hundreds of seed-stage investments across North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa, making it one of the highest-volume pre-seed investors globally. Elizabeth Yin is one of the most prolific writers and educators on pre-seed investing, maintaining a popular newsletter and podcast that has built a significant audience of founders and investors. Portfolio companies include Brass, the Nigerian B2B financial services platform; and Healthtracka, the Nigerian at-home health testing and diagnostics platform. Beyond its original investments in Brass and Healthtracka, the portfolio includes hundreds of additional early-stage technology companies across global markets.