Jim Kim
Founder & General Partner at builders-vc
Reviewed Updated Jul 7, 2026This profile is AI-generated. If you spot an error, please help us fix it by sharing a URL to the correct information.
Background
Jim Kim is Founder and General Partner at Builders VC, a San Francisco-based venture firm he co-founded in 2017 focused on “modernizing antiquated industries” — agriculture, industrial technology, construction, healthcare operations, and life sciences 12. Builders VC is headquartered at 601 California Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, with satellite offices in Chicago and Calgary 13.
Before Builders VC, Kim founded Formation 8 (later restructured into 8VC and other successor vehicles) and remains a Managing Partner of that legacy vehicle 24. Earlier in his career he was a General Partner at Khosla Ventures and a Senior Partner at CMEA Capital, and he began his venture career founding GE’s venture capital effort, where he led investments in China High Speed Transmission and comScore 24.
Kim holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science & Electrical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, where he also co-founded a venture-backed internet infrastructure startup with fellow Course 6 students; he also holds a Master’s in Quantitative Data Analysis from Columbia University and an MBA from Columbia Business School 24.
Builders VC closed a $175M Fund I by June 2018, a $250M Fund II, and announced Fund III targeting approximately $500M in January 2024 453.
Stated Thesis
Kim describes Builders VC’s thesis as backing entrepreneurs applying modern technology to industries with historically low IT spend:
“The whole thesis behind Builders is to go after antiquated, unsexy industries.” 4
“My career…has always been going after unsexy spaces, looking at real, meaningful problems in these spaces.” 4
He has publicly framed the vertical selection quantitatively:
“We analyzed how much IT spend happens in every vertical. On one end, there were sectors like fintech where 6 to 7 percent of revenue was spent on IT. On the opposite end, there were sectors like agriculture, livestock, real estate, construction and industrial tech. Those were the spaces we found interesting.” 4
On founder profile:
“We’re not looking to back the Stanford kid that knows nothing about the industry firsthand. We’re looking to back the 20-year industry veteran who’s teamed up with an engineer. They know things because they’ve lived them.” 4
On stage timing:
“There are seed funders everywhere. When a company has some early customer traction, it’s the perfect time for us to come in.” 4
Inferred Thesis
Based on the verified portfolio below and Builders VC’s published firm portfolio, Kim’s investment behavior aligns closely with the firm’s stated “antiquated industries” thesis — a rare degree of stated-versus-inferred convergence.
Sector patterns. Kim’s directly attributed deals cluster in industrials/manufacturing (Breaking, Bolt Threads, Gradiant), construction/PropTech (Fieldwire, Bowery Valuation), synthetic biology / life sciences (Colossal, Notable Labs), transportation/logistics (Motive/Keeptruckin), agriculture, and consumer hardware (Bowers & Wilkins via EVA Automation). The portfolio is notably light in enterprise SaaS and pure-software consumer categories.
Stage. Predominantly Series A leads with $3M-$10M average checks, consistent with the firm’s stated positioning 4. Kim has also participated in later-stage rounds of legacy Formation 8 portfolio companies (Bolt Threads, Fieldwire Series C).
Founder pattern. A recurring pattern: pairing a “20-year industry veteran” domain expert with a technical co-founder. Colossal (George Church + Ben Lamm), Breaking (Wyss/Harvard research team + biotech operators), and Motive (industry-experienced logistics team) all fit this template.
Board seat concentration. Kim’s active board seats span the same industrial focus areas: Bowers & Wilkins (via EVA Automation, consumer hardware), Bolt Threads (materials science), Fieldwire (construction, since acquired by Hilti), Bowery Valuation (real-estate PropTech), and Notable Labs (oncology data platform) 6.
Portfolio partitioning. Signal.nfx aggregates 13 deals across Kim’s Formation 8 and Builders VC tenures. Many of the pre-2017 rounds (Fieldwire Series A 2015, Bolt Series B 2015, Notable Labs Series A 2017) are Formation 8-era; the newer rounds (Breaking 2024, plus subsequent Builders VC-led deals) reflect the current firm’s activity 7.
Notable structural bet. Builders VC employs a full-time psychiatrist for founder conflict resolution — a stated first in VC — and retains industry-specific venture partners (e.g., Jim Blome, former CEO of Bayer Crop Sciences, on the agriculture side), a structural reflection of the “expertise-in-the-dirt” thesis 8.
Portfolio
| Company | Year | Stage | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fieldwire | 2015 | Series A | 76 |
| Bolt Threads | 2015 | Series B | 67 |
| Bolt Threads | 2017 | Series D | 7 |
| Notable Labs | 2017 | Series A | 76 |
| Bowers & Wilkins (EVA Automation) | ~2016 | Board seat | 6 |
| Fieldwire | 2019 | Series C | 7 |
| Checkerspot | 2019 | Series A | 7 |
| Checkerspot | 2020 | Series B | 7 |
| Bowery Valuation | 2018 | Board seat | 6 |
| Carbon Health | 2022 | Series A | 7 |
| Breaking | 2024 | Seed (lead) | 9 |
| Great Gums | 2025 | Pre-Seed | 7 |
| UbiQD | 2025 | Series B (participant) | 10 |
Note: Rounds prior to 2017 predate Builders VC and reflect Formation 8-era or Khosla Ventures-era activity where Kim was the deal partner. Kim’s Builders VC bio 2 also lists ongoing collaborations with the founders of Motive (formerly KeepTruckin), 280Earth, Gradiant, Wish, Colossal, and Navier without publicly documented individual round dates; those companies are excluded here per Seedlist’s rule against ungrounded years, but represent real relationships. See “Connections” for board seats.
In Their Own Words
On sector selection:
“We analyzed how much IT spend happens in every vertical. On one end, there were sectors like fintech where 6 to 7 percent of revenue was spent on IT. On the opposite end, there were sectors like agriculture, livestock, real estate, construction and industrial tech. Those were the spaces we found interesting.” 4
On agriculture specifically:
“less than one tenth of one percent of revenue is spent on IT…it’s kind of shocking…given it’s a trillion dollar global industry.” 4
On founder selection:
“We’re not looking to back the Stanford kid that knows nothing about the industry firsthand. We’re looking to back the 20-year industry veteran who’s teamed up with an engineer. They know things because they’ve lived them.” 4
On the entrepreneur–investor relationship:
“we try to find entrepreneurs who are technology savvy but they also have to have industry expertise.” 4
On timing:
“There are seed funders everywhere. When a company has some early customer traction, it’s the perfect time for us to come in.” 4
On differentiation:
“I realized that every firm needs to have some differentiation. You’ve got to have a special sauce, a reason why entrepreneurs want to work with you.” 8
On personal motivation for entering VC:
“I realized that people on the other side of the table were having a lot of fun. So I said, ‘I want that job.’” 4
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials specifically about working with Jim Kim were found in accessible public sources. Founder-facing quotes from Builders VC portfolio companies appear largely as boilerplate in press-release announcements and are excluded here per Seedlist policy on non-substantive testimonials.
Connections
- Board seats (Builders VC / Formation 8 legacy): Bowers & Wilkins (via EVA Automation), Bolt Threads, Fieldwire (through 2023 acquisition by Hilti), Bowery Valuation, Notable Labs 6
- Prior firms: Khosla Ventures (former General Partner) 24; CMEA Capital (former Senior Partner) 24; GE Venture Capital (founder) 24
- Formation 8 legacy co-founders: Joe Lonsdale, Brian Koo (founded 2011; later split into 8VC and Formation Group) 4
- Builders VC co-founders / GPs: Mike Rosengarten, Amit Mehta, Alex Kinnier, Jocelyn Doe (current GPs at Builders VC) 11
- Venture partners: Jim Blome (former Bayer Crop Sciences CEO, agriculture); Steve Dell’Orto (construction); Tom Halbouty (industrials) 11
Sources
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“Builders VC — We Help Founders Modernize Antiquated Industries,” Builders VC website, accessed July 2026. https://www.builders.vc/↩↩
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“Jim Kim,” Builders VC team page, accessed July 2026. https://www.builders.vc/jim-kim.html↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“Builders VC — Portfolio & Firm Profile,” PitchBook, accessed July 2026. https://pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/168899-8↩↩
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Ronny Kerr, “Meet Jim Kim, Founder and General Partner at Builders VC,” VatorNews, August 13, 2019. https://vator.tv/news/2019-08-13-meet-jim-kim-founder-and-general-partner-at-builders-vc↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“Builders VC — Institution Profile,” Private Equity International, accessed July 2026. https://www.privateequityinternational.com/institution-profiles/builders-vc.html↩
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“Jim Kim — Executive Bio, Work History, and Contacts,” Equilar ExecAtlas, accessed July 2026. https://people.equilar.com/bio/person/james-kim-builders-vc-llc/18323779↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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“Jim Kim’s Investing Profile,” Signal by NFX, accessed July 2026. https://signal.nfx.com/investors/jim-kim↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩↩
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Christine Hall, “Meet Builders VC, A Firm Backing Startups In ‘Nonsexy’ Industries,” Crunchbase News, December 2019. https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/meet-builders-vc-a-firm-backing-startups-in-antiquated-industries/↩↩
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“Plastic Degradation Company, Breaking, Emerges from Stealth with Naturally-Derived Solution to Degrade Multiple Plastics with $10.5M in Seed Funding,” Wyss Institute (Harvard University), April 17, 2024. https://wyss.harvard.edu/news/plastic-degradation-company-breaking-emerges-from-stealth-with-naturally-derived-solution-to-degrade-multiple-plastics-with-10-5m-in-seed-funding/↩
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“UbiQD Secures $20M in Series B Funding to Scale Quantum Dot Technology Across Industries,” PR Newswire, April 22, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ubiqd-secures-20m-in-series-b-funding-to-scale-quantum-dot-technology-across-industries-302434131.html↩
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“People,” Builders VC team page, accessed July 2026. https://www.builders.vc/people.html↩↩