Backing your next favorite thing ☀️
Hello! We're Ryan and Vedika. We write $100K–$300K checks into pre-seed and seed companies riding shifts in consumer behavior and technology. We're a small distributed team, optimistic about the future :)
Los Angeles ☀️ + London ☂️ · Ryan founded Product Hunt · 5 unicorns and counting
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- Portfolio companies
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- Total investments
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- Unicorns
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- Operator & founder LPs
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- Percentile IRR*
*Fund I net IRR 36.6% · Fund II net IRR 117.9% (as of April 2021) — 100th percentile per AngelList's fund calculator.
Things people love
77+ companies and counting, from seed-stage sparks to $12B giants. Browse it like Product Hunt — upvote your favorites. (The button does nothing. It just feels great.)
Flyby Robotics
Robotics
Next-generation drone robotics.
Cytronic
Deep Tech
Deep tech, early and ambitious.
Adaptive Computer
Deep Tech
Rebuilding the personal computer, AI-first.
Hamilton AI
AI
Early-stage AI. Details soon ☀️
Lucent
AI · Data
Early-stage AI for data. Details soon ☀️
GHC
Stealth-ish
Details coming soon ☀️
Alter
AI · Avatars
Avatar systems for creators.
Around
Video
Video calls designed for hybrid teams.
Spectrum
Communities
A platform for online communities.
Supergreat
Beauty
A video community for beauty lovers.
Poparazzi
Social
The anti-selfie social app.
Awari
Consumer
An early Weekend Fund bet.
Block Party
Online Safety
Tools for a safer, quieter internet.
…and more ☀️~15 new investments every year
The Deel story
Ryan first met Deel's Alex Bouazizi through his launches on Product Hunt. So when Alex reached out about Deel's seed round, Ryan had already seen him ship — and, having built a globally distributed team himself, knew exactly why the product had to exist.
Deel is now valued at $12B+— one of the fastest-growing startups in history. No Product Hunt, no check. That's the Weekend Fund edge: we meet founders where products launch, years before the market catches on.
Met on
Product Hunt
Backed at
Seed
Now valued at
$12B+
Growth cohort
Fastest ever
As told in Mercury's profile of Ryan ↗
Two lenses. No thesis-of-the-month.
We're truly generalist — probably more generalist than most investors who tell you they're generalist. Every investment just has to clear one of two bars:
Consumer behavior shifts
Products that change how people behave in the world. Snapchat rewired how a generation communicates. Deel rewired how companies hire — from anywhere. We look for that same before-and-after.
Technology shifts
New technology that lets founders build what was previously impossible — voice-first apps, AI-native products, and whatever ships next. When the tools change, the winners get rewritten.
“What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years.”
So, what do you invest in?
Truly generalist — probably more generalist than most investors who tell you they're generalist. Consumer, B2B, fintech, health, AI, crypto, deep tech. If it could be someone's next favorite thing, we're curious.
Do you lead rounds?
Nope! We write $100K–$300K checks alongside great lead investors, at pre-seed and seed.
How picky are you?
We look at ~2,000 companies a year and invest in ~15. That's about 1% — but a warm, friendly 1%.
Are you hands-on?
We're not board-seat people, but we're not passive either. We build tools for founders, make a lot of introductions, and our 350+ operator LPs are an extension of our small team.
A very small team, on purpose
Two partners, two time zones, one shared obsession with new products. No associates, no memo committees — you pitch the people who decide.
Ryan Hoover
Founder & General Partner
Los Angeles ☀️
Founded Product Hunt in 2013 — grew it from an email-list side project into the launchpad for new products, acquired by AngelList in 2016. Co-wrote Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (500K+ copies sold).
Started Weekend Fund in 2017 to invest his own way: fewer coffee meetings, more products, and a network that begins where things launch.
“I'm an introvert. I didn't want to be doing eight back-to-back coffee meetings.”
Usually found with his French bulldog.
Vedika Jain
General Partner
London ☂️
Started at Stripe in 2015 during its explosive-growth years, then became the first product manager at TrueLayer as it scaled from 8 to 80 people. Stops at Mithril, Kalaari, and Kairos along the way.
Joined Weekend Fund in 2019 and now leads as General Partner — bringing pure product-management DNA to how the fund evaluates and supports founders.
“How is it possible that venture capital funds don't have to find product-market fit themselves?”
Wrote fantasy investment memos for fun before it was her job — and built a rubric to stress-test a startup's AGI-proof moat.
Weekend Partners ☀️
We back external builders with $1M each to invest, splitting carry 50/50 — because great founders take checks from people they already trust. 11 of us now, across the US & UK.
Backed by people who've built things
350+ operators and founders — from places like Stripe, Figma, and Airbnb — are LPs in Weekend Fund. A few names you might recognize:
“Our LPs are an extension of our small team.”
We build products, too
Old Product Hunt habits die hard. Alongside the fund, we ship tools for founders and fund managers — no other fund does this, and honestly, we can't help ourselves.
FastRound
Helps founders find the investors already following them on X.
Home
A visual music project made from Ryan's childhood home videos.
Founders say it best
I first cold emailed Ryan to review our Y Combinator application. Feedback came in same day, plus a recommendation to YC. Investors aside, he's helped close enterprise accounts plus top technology hires. I'm certain Weekend Fund will make an ongoing impact on the path to building a $1B business.
Willson Cross
Founder, Pattern
Weekend Fund is one of the best investors we have. Not only have they been key partners for us as we found product-market fit, but continue to lean in with critical introductions to other investors as we scaled into our Seed and Series A. I have never met anyone that has the ability to make as many highly qualified introductions as Ryan!
Sarah Wendell Sherrill
Founder, Lobus
“Ryan and Vedika are awesome.”
Building someone's next favorite thing?
We'd love to hear from you — and yes, we actually read it. We look at ~2,000 companies a year, and every one starts with an email like yours.
Prefer a call? Grab time with Ryan at intro.co/RyanHoover