Weekend Fund

About

Weekend Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2017 by Ryan Hoover, the creator of Product Hunt ¹. Hoover started Weekend Fund as a $3 million angel fund on AngelList’s Angel Fund platform shortly after AngelList acquired Product Hunt for approximately $20 million ²³. The fund’s name references the idea that transformational companies often start as nights-and-weekends side projects ⁴.

In 2019, Weekend Fund raised a $10 million Fund II, nearly tripling its initial fund size ⁵³. In 2021, the firm raised Fund III at $21 million, structured as two parallel vehicles — a Qualified Purchaser fund accepting up to 2,000 LPs and a non-QP fund accepting up to 250 LPs — for a total capacity of 2,250 LPs ⁶⁷. The fund allocates approximately 70% to new early-stage investments and 30% to follow-on commitments ⁸.

Weekend Fund is led by Ryan Hoover and Vedika Jain, who joined in 2019 as Chief of Staff before becoming General Partner ⁹. The two-person GP team writes $100K–$300K checks into early-stage startups globally across consumer and B2B ¹. The firm maintains a network of 350+ LP operators and founders from companies including Stripe, Figma, Airbnb, AngelList, Coinbase, GitHub, Google, Instagram, and Reddit ⁶¹⁰. Notable individual LPs include Naval Ravikant, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Troy Carter, Kevin Rose, Chris and Crystal Sacca, and Michael Seibel ¹⁰.

In January 2025, Weekend Fund launched its Weekend Partners program, selecting 10 scout investors from over 500 applicants to source and evaluate startups, each receiving $1M to invest with a 50/50 GP carry split ¹¹.

As of early 2026, Weekend Fund has invested in approximately 76 companies, with 5 unicorns (Deel, MoonPay, Pipe, Intercom, HeadSpin) and 11 acquisitions ¹². As of April 2021, Fund I reported a 36.6% IRR and Fund II reported a 117.9% IRR, though these returns were partially unrealized and valuations were unaudited ¹⁰.

Stated Thesis

Weekend Fund publicly describes its investment approach as backing “ambitious early-stage founders who combine unique market insights with a bias toward action,” particularly those “capitalizing on consumer behavior or technology shifts” ⁹¹³. The firm frames its thesis around the idea that “the next big thing is being built on nights and weekends,” referencing Chris Dixon’s observation that “what the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years” ⁴.

Ryan Hoover has described the firm’s approach: “These could be technology shifts, cultural shifts, regulatory shifts. We try to meet founders that have an insight into these inflection points and can articulate why the thing they’re building doesn’t exist already” ¹⁴.

The firm states it helps founders with “product, community building, and GTM strategy” and aims to be “the highest helpfulness to check-size ratio investor to our portfolio founders” ¹¹⁵. Weekend Fund does not require warm introductions and typically makes investment decisions within approximately two weeks ¹³.

The firm has publicly expressed interest in audio and voice products, tools for distributed teams and remote workers, low-code/no-code tools, consumer health (including GLP-1s and digital health), and AI enterprise applications ⁵¹²¹³.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 35 verified portfolio investments (of approximately 76 total, representing ~46% of known investments), the following patterns emerge. Sample size is moderate; percentages are directional.

Sector distribution (35 verified investments): - Enterprise/B2B software: 11 of 35 (31%) — Deel, Intercom, Voiceflow, Luminai, Outset, DealOps, Certn, Buildspace, Mainframe, Bubbles, Graphy - Fintech/crypto: 8 of 35 (23%) — Pipe, MoonPay, Secfi, Northstar, Coinshift, Syndicate, Magic Link, Rail - Consumer apps/social: 7 of 35 (20%) — YOLO, TTYL, Poparazzi, Superplastic, Dispo, FaZe Clan, Piñata Farms - Health/wellness: 3 of 35 (9%) — Mindbloom, TrueMed, Function Health - Consumer commerce/services: 3 of 35 (9%) — Blueland, Atlys, Dukaan - Other (infrastructure, hardware): 3 of 35 (9%) — HeadSpin, AirGarage, Extropic

Stage distribution: Overwhelmingly pre-seed and seed. The firm writes $100K–$300K checks, typically as a participant rather than lead investor ¹³. Occasional follow-on SPVs in later stages for high-conviction companies ⁹.

Geographic distribution (35 verified investments): - United States: approximately 25 of 35 (71%) - India: approximately 4 of 35 (11%) — Dukaan, Atlys, Coinshift, InVideo - Other international (Canada, UK, etc.): approximately 6 of 35 (17%)

The firm invests globally, which is unusual for a fund of this size ¹.

Founder profile patterns: The firm gravitates toward product-oriented founders with strong community-building instincts, consistent with Ryan Hoover’s Product Hunt background. Portfolio companies frequently have consumer-facing or community-driven go-to-market strategies.

Co-investor patterns: Weekend Fund frequently co-invests alongside Andreessen Horowitz (a16z backed AirGarage, Deel, TrueMed after Weekend Fund seed investments), Y Combinator alumni networks, and other seed-stage micro-funds.

Notable gaps between stated and inferred thesis: The firm’s stated interest in “audio and voice products” is weakly represented in the verified portfolio (primarily Voiceflow). Crypto/web3 representation (23%) is higher than the firm’s public messaging emphasizes. The consumer social category (YOLO, TTYL, Poparazzi, Dispo) represents a meaningful allocation that has seen mixed outcomes — YOLO was acquired and Dispo was shut down.

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 49 of ~76 known investments (~64%). Investment years are anchored to fund vintages: Fund I (2017-2018), Fund II (2019-2020), Fund III (2021+). Dates for 2023-2025 investments are sourced from Tracxn and f4.fund. Weekend Fund writes $100K-$300K checks, so individual investment press coverage is limited; most entries are verified via aggregator sources (Tracxn, Weekend Fund website, and TechCrunch fund announcement articles).

In Their Own Words

“The next big thing is being built on nights and weekends.” — Ryan Hoover, Weekend Fund founding announcement ⁴

“It’s more about being curious enough to understand the shifts that founders are building upon and have a thesis about what it means for the future.” — Ryan Hoover, Mercury interview ¹⁴

“These could be technology shifts, cultural shifts, regulatory shifts. We try to meet founders that have an insight into these inflection points and can articulate why the thing they’re building doesn’t exist already.” — Ryan Hoover, Mercury interview ¹⁴

“Builders and creators — the people who are curious to try to turn an idea into something real — are the ones making progress and solving problems.” — Ryan Hoover, Mercury interview ¹⁴

“It was the smallest fund of all time. It did grow to $3M, but even that’s still comically small.” — Ryan Hoover, on Fund I, Mercury interview ¹⁴

“Rather than limiting our raise to a small group of people in our existing network, we sought to onboard ‘1,000 true LPs.’” — Ryan Hoover, on Fund III LP strategy ⁶

“We view Weekend Fund LPs as a value-add; an extension of our two-person team and foundation for some upcoming community-driven experiments.” — Ryan Hoover, Fund III announcement ⁶

“Right now, the next Facebook is being built on nights and weekends and it’s these curious, creative founders that I’d like to support.” — Ryan Hoover, Crunchbase News interview ³

What Founders Say

“Ryan and Vedika are awesome. Their backgrounds, network and deep appreciation of founders is what makes them one of the best.” — Alex Bouaziz, CEO & Co-Founder of Deel ¹⁰

“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.” — Willson Cross, Founder of Pattern ¹⁰

“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.” — Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Founder of Lobus ¹⁰

Note: These testimonials are sourced from Weekend Fund’s own investor page. No independently sourced founder testimonials were found from third-party publications.

Sources