Sunwoo Lee
Founder of Hanaro.Investor
Los Angeles, California
Overview
Work Experience
Partner
2024 - Current
the place for emerging venture capital fund managers: https://slicefund.substack.com
Tinkering
2021
Hanaro is a passion project I started to bridge the gap between Korean Americans in VC/startups in terms of connecting to other Korean American Investors, and also Korean founders in Seoul looking to expand into the U.S., and vice versa. While the podcast shares some of these conversations, my broader goal is to build a collective where the Korean American tech ecosystem can thrive.
Growth
2022 - 2024
FNDR is a world-class team of brand and storytelling experts from Apple, Airbnb, and Snap, helping the next generation of founders craft their perfect narrative. Leaving university to join this team, I helped manage growth initiatives, including all diligence for funds, investors, and companies, expanding our investor network across the US, Paris, and London, and targeting new markets like Berlin and Tel Aviv. I also streamlined our CRM and supported marketing efforts for FNDR and The Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies Podcast with James Vincent.
FNDR unlocks the genius of founders to create an Intentional Narrative, that helps them be meaningful in culture & sustainable in business.
Managing Partner
2021 - 2023
Atland Ventures is the first student-run VC fund with its own LP backing, focused on solving problems for Gen Z. Supported by top venture capitalists and University of Minnesota alumni, I joined as an analyst with a 3% acceptance rate and later became Managing Partner. I led Fund II’s fundraising, raising $400k from new and existing LPs while simultaneously leading internal operations sourcing and screening 100+ startups per semester, including BetterYou, which joined our portfolio.
Atland Ventures is a student-run venture capital firm that focuses on the field of financial services and venture capital.
Portfolio Support
2021 - 2022
Groove is the first institutionalized pre-seed fund in Minnesota, supporting founders in its deep state roots across medtech, retailtech, and fintech. Throughout my time, I worked closely with portfolio companies and operational systems across the fund, having helped build out the foundation for Fund I - weaving together a powerful network that connected our 28 portfolio companies to the right LPs, angels, VCs, and founders to accelerate their growth trajectories. I also sourced and executed the fund's seed investment in Itiliti Health - which is focused on transforming healthcare payment systems, modernizing the processes and management of prior authorizations for payers.
Groove Capital is a new investment firm targeting early-stage companies.