Venture capitalists Jonathan Teo and Justin Caldbeck are planning to launch a new fund that will focus on consumer technology. The news was first reported by Fortune and was confirmed to TechCrunch by two sources.
We’ve learned that the fund will be called Binary and it will focus on making early-stage investments in consumer technology. Our sources told us that Binary is not a seed investment fund, but that it wants to help new startups focus on developing their products instead of worrying about capital.
Teo and Caldbeck, who declined to comment for this post, have been friends for six years. Teo previously spent two years as managing director at General Catalyst, where he was a personal investor and led GC’s Series A and B participation in Snapchat. His other investments there included Chloe+Isabel, Couchsurfing and HeyDay. Before joining General Catalyst, Teo was at Benchmark Capital, where he originated its investments in Instagram and Twitter.
While a partner at Lightspeed, Caldbeck’s investments included GrubHub, which recently filed for an IPO of up to $100 million, BloomReach, and TaskRabbit. Before joining Lightspeed, Caldbeck was a partner at Bain Capital Ventures, where he launched the firm’s West Coast office.
Teo and Caldbeck’s decision to strike off on their own may be a loss for their former firms, but it is a boon for consumer tech startups that struggle to find post-seed stage investment. TechCrunch doesn’t know yet how much Binary wants to raise, but we’ll keep you updated.