Seattle VC Profile: Andy Liu, Unlock Ventures

When I started Ascend in 2019, I realized even though I was o-l-d OLD, I had more in common with the folks in town who were earlier in their professional investing journeys than the venerable VC’s I’d pitched as a founder. I admire and respect the new wave of Seattle/Pacific Northwest venture capitalists, and thought it would be fun to profile some of our region’s up and coming VC talents in these pages. —KW

Andy Liu of Unlock Ventures is a founder’s founder. His track record raising venture, exiting his two startups, and angel investing prolifically, combined with a poker master’s love of the game, makes Andy unique in the Seattle ecosystem.

What made you decide to be a professional investor?

I get fired up helping entrepreneurs achieve their goals and dreams.

What did you do before becoming an investor and how does that benefit your founders?

I started and exited two venture-backed companies and can empathize with the entrepreneurial journey. Learned a ton of good and hard lessons along the way.

What are your most successful investments so far?

We are still early but many of our companies are performing well including Possible Finance, Dolly, Fight Camp, and Outer to name a few.

Why should founders want you on their cap table?

We hustle hard for our founders assisting on the board, taking late night calls, introducing new anchor customers, new hires, helping with financing strategy, amongst other things. While we don't operate the company, we understand how difficult it is to build a company from the ground up and we want to be as helpful as the founder would like us to be. In addition, we host learning events, summits, and build strong networks for our entrepreneurs to thrive. They become a part of our community.

How many new pitches (actual calls/zooms) do you take per month?

I average about 25-30 per month.

How many new investments do you make per year?

We average about 8 investments per year.

What's your sweet spot(s) in terms of check size, valuation, and vertical?

We invest in pre-seed and seed stage. Our average check size is between $750K-$1.5M for the initial check and target ownership in the range of 10-25% although there isn't a hard and fast rule. We are pretty broad in verticals - it is all tech and we won't do biotech or medtech. We like companies that have a strong, sustainable competitive advantage around data.