Kristina Shen

Background

Kristina Shen is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Chemistry, an early-stage venture firm she launched in October 2024 with a $350M debut fund ¹². She co-founded the firm with Mark Goldberg (formerly Index Ventures) and Ethan Kurzweil (formerly Bessemer Venture Partners) ¹. The debut fund was reported to be significantly oversubscribed ³.

Before Chemistry, Shen was a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) for four years (2019–2024), where she led the firm’s B2B software investing practice ⁴⁵. Prior to a16z, she was a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners for seven years (2013–2019), where she co-authored the influential “State of the Cloud” report and Bessemer Cloud Index alongside Byron Deeter ⁶⁷. At Bessemer, she was promoted to Vice President in 2015 and to Partner in 2017 ⁷⁸.

Shen began her career in technology investment banking at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, where she worked on IPOs for Palo Alto Networks, Zynga, Fusion-io, and Infoblox, as well as the sale of Q1 Labs to IBM ⁶. She then worked as an investor at JMI Equity before joining Bessemer in 2013 ⁶.

She holds a B.A. in Operations Research and Management Science from UC Berkeley ⁶. She was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Venture Capital in 2016 and Business Insider’s “30 and Under” Rising Stars in Silicon Valley in 2014 ⁶.

Stated Thesis

(Self-reported: These represent what Shen says publicly about her investing approach. See Inferred Thesis for analysis of actual investment behavior.)

Chemistry publicly describes its focus as backing early-stage software companies at the seed and Series A stages, targeting B2B startups in fintech, work software, and developer and infrastructure tools ¹². Each partner plans to make two to three investments per year ². The firm uses a single-trigger investment model rather than consensus-based decisions, allowing individual partners to move forward with conviction on deals ³.

Shen has expressed particular conviction in AI agents that solve backend operational inefficiencies, viewing these tools “not just as software but as autonomous systems that handle work to speed up teams” ⁹. She has described voice AI as a strategic wedge for entering legacy vertical markets, particularly healthcare ¹⁰.

On evaluating early-stage companies, Shen has stated: “When you’re a very early stage founder, I actually really care that you understand the ICP or ideal customer profile…more than the output of these metrics” ¹¹. She has cautioned against over-reliance on benchmarks: “Benchmarks are average. If you were to take the top, top SaaS companies out there, they would not necessarily all look great on every SaaS metric” ¹¹.

On retention metrics, Shen has stated: “Net dollar retention is actually the most incorrectly used number and cited number” and emphasizes that retention expectations vary dramatically by customer segment ¹¹.

On growth standards, she has pushed for higher bars: “I do think Rule of 40 isn’t good enough anymore. Rule of 60 is actually kind of, I think a more accurate standard now” ¹¹.

Inferred Thesis

The analysis below is based on 18 verified investments attributed to Shen across her tenures at Bessemer (2013–2019), a16z (2019–2024), and Chemistry (2024–present).

Sector breakdown (18 verified investments): - Vertical SaaS and workflow automation: 6 of 18 (33%) — ServiceTitan, Wrapbook, Tennr, Assort Health, Didero, Decagon - Developer tools and infrastructure: 4 of 18 (22%) — Mux, Rutter, Equals, Macro - HR/compensation/workplace: 3 of 18 (17%) — Pave, Glint, Gainsight - Product analytics: 1 of 18 (6%) — Sprig - Video/media: 1 of 18 (6%) — Vidyard - EdTech: 1 of 18 (6%) — Instructure - Events: 1 of 18 (6%) — DoubleDutch - AI/IT automation: 1 of 18 (6%) — Serval

Note: Some companies span categories. Tennr, Assort Health, Didero, and Decagon are classified under workflow automation given their AI-agent approach to automating operational tasks.

Stage distribution: Shen invests primarily at Series A — at least 8 of 18 investments (44%) were at Series A (Pave, Wrapbook, Rutter, Equals, Tennr, Assort Health, Didero, and ServiceTitan’s early rounds). At least 3 were at seed (17%) including Decagon and Macro. 2 were at Series B or later (11%) including Mux (Series C) and Sprig (Series B). The remaining Bessemer-era investments have unclear entry points.

AI thesis shift: Since founding Chemistry, all 4 confirmed investments (Assort Health, Didero, Decagon, Serval) involve AI agents or AI-powered automation. This represents a notable concentration compared to her pre-Chemistry portfolio, which was predominantly traditional SaaS. She views AI agents as solving backend operational inefficiencies in areas like procurement and healthcare ⁹¹⁰.

Founder patterns: Shen has repeatedly backed technical co-founding teams. On Rutter, she praised the cofounders’ “passion for solving customer problems, technical expertise, and execution speed” ¹². On Mux, she compared their API to Twilio and Stripe ¹³. She was drawn to ServiceTitan’s founders despite them being “far from a perfectly packaged story” ⁵, suggesting openness to non-consensus bets on founders with domain expertise.

Long-term relationships: A distinctive pattern is Shen’s multi-stage involvement. She invested in Decagon at seed and continued investing through Chemistry in their $250M Series D ¹⁴. She worked with ServiceTitan from ~2014 through its December 2024 IPO, spanning over a decade ¹⁵.

Geographic concentration: Investments are predominantly in US-based companies, concentrated in San Francisco and the broader Bay Area.

Co-investor patterns: At Chemistry, she has co-led with Headline (Didero) ¹⁶ and First Round Capital (Assort Health) ¹⁰. At a16z, notable co-investors included Bessemer Venture Partners (Pave), Equal Ventures and WndrCo (Wrapbook), and Accel (Mux).

Notable gap: Despite stating a fintech focus for Chemistry, only 1 of 18 verified investments (Wrapbook, an entertainment payroll company) is primarily fintech. The portfolio is overwhelmingly enterprise SaaS and, more recently, AI agents for operational automation.

Portfolio

This table represents 18 investments where Shen’s individual involvement is publicly confirmed. During her seven years at Bessemer and four years at a16z, she likely participated in additional deals not individually attributed to her. Bessemer-era investments marked with “~” use approximate dates based on her board tenure.

In Their Own Words

“The last time I saw an API this elegant and powerful was Twilio for SMS or Stripe for payment.” — Kristina Shen on Mux, a16z investment announcement, August 2020 ¹³.

“The spreadsheet remains one of the best interfaces for data analysis and exploration. It’s a flexible canvas that can be easily adapted to any scenario or business.” — Kristina Shen on Equals, a16z investment announcement, 2022 ²¹.

“We’re thrilled to lead Sprig’s Series B and help support the team’s vision to democratize continuous user research.” — Kristina Shen, a16z investment announcement, 2021 ²⁰.

“Wrapbook clearly understands the needs of the project-based economy and takes a fresh approach to the complex problem of getting project-based workers paid efficiently.” — Kristina Shen, Wrapbook Series A announcement, March 2021 ¹⁹.

“Procurement is the backbone of commerce yet it is still painfully inefficient. Didero is changing that by autonomously handling the operational work that slows teams down.” — Kristina Shen on Twitter, announcing Didero investment, 2026 ¹⁶.

“The first page I always flip to is highlights and lowlights. I just want to know what went well and what didn’t go well.” — Kristina Shen on reviewing board decks, Subscript interview, 2022 ¹¹.

“I am very opposed to LTV to CAC ratio…LTV assumptions are just incredibly volatile based off whatever retention number you assume.” — Kristina Shen, Subscript interview, 2022 ¹¹.

“Every business is very unique…we have over indexed on metrics and benchmarks.” — Kristina Shen, Subscript interview, 2022 ¹¹.

“Always fun reading how you thought about an investment in @ServiceTitan from 10 years ago!! My favorite part is we thought it’d only be a $1bn outcome.” — Kristina Shen on Twitter, December 2024, reflecting on ServiceTitan’s IPO ¹⁵.

What Founders Say

“We first met Kristina in 2013 and she immediately stood out as an independent thinker. We were far from a perfectly packaged story. Kristina has an ability to look past the consensus view and it was her passion and belief in ServiceTitan that drew us to her.” — Vahe Kuzoyan, President & Co-Founder of ServiceTitan ⁵.

No additional independently sourced founder testimonials found. Dedicated searches for founder reviews on Twitter, podcasts, and press coverage did not yield verifiable quotes beyond the ServiceTitan testimonial above, which appears on Chemistry’s website and should be treated as a curated testimonial.

Sources