Foothill Ventures

Foothill Ventures, founded in 2017 and headquartered in Los Altos, California, is an early-stage technology venture capital firm that operated as Tsingyuan Ventures until rebranding in 2021. The firm grew out of the Tsinghua Entrepreneur and Executive Club and its associated TEEC Angel Fund, building an identity around backing technical, often immigrant founders across the United States. With roughly $150 million in assets under management, Foothill invests at the seed and Series A stages in software, life science and deep tech, writing cheques that range from about $100,000 to $10 million with a sweet spot around $1 million, generally as a co-investor. The partnership is notably technical, with several partners holding PhDs in fields spanning computer science, materials science and oncology; key figures include Managing Partners Michael Jin and Jinlin Wang, co-founder Eric Rosenblum, formerly a product leader at Palantir and Google and COO of Drawbridge, and Xuhui Shao. The firm and its predecessor team have an exceptional unicorn track record, having backed Zoom, Quanergy, Ginkgo Bioworks, Carta, Iterable, Plus and WeRide at early stages. Foothill closed an oversubscribed $100 million fund in 2021 and later raised Fund III at around $110 million. The firm remains highly active, with recent activity including participation in Lucidean's seed round and an investment in Aether Fuels in early 2026, alongside exits such as EquityZen, acquired by Morgan Stanley in October 2025, and Fox Robotics. By backing technical and immigrant founders early, Foothill Ventures has built a portfolio of around 148 investments with multiple unicorns.