Tara Tan

Managing Partner at Strange Ventures

San Francisco, California

Overview

Tara Tan is the General Partner at Strange Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, specializing in investing in startups focused on creativity and computing. With a background in design and technology, Tara has held key roles at IDEO, Formlabs, and Studio Now, showcasing a successful career in venture capital and design leadership.

Work Experience

Strange Ventures

Founder and Managing Partner
2023 - Current
Building an enduring first-check fund investing in inventor-CEOs building the future of computing.

IDEO

General Partner (Investing)
2016 - 2022
Investor at IDEO Ventures. Led investments in Moment (acq), EarlyBird, Syng, Sequin Financial, Lifescore, Kiddiwinks, OnBrand, Huddle. Achieved top-decile returns in ICV Fund I (2018 vintage) as cofounder and partner. One of the earliest to champion the need for design in blockchain. Key early-stage investments include Near, Optimism, River Financial. Incubated and launched ventures in crypto and AI. Partnered with leading technical founders and helped launch the first dApps on Ethereum in 2017. Fun fact: the first NFT standards ERC-721 were drafted in the IDEO offices.

Formlabs

Design Director
2014 - 2016

Formlabs develops and manufactures 3D printers and software for the industrial sector.

Raised $253,699,968.00 from SoftBank Vision Fund.

formlabs.com

Various Companies

Founder
2007 - 2014
Created wildly ambitious interactive installations that toured to Japan and Singapore, including a multimedia live film experience with an original soundtrack, and the world's first iPhone play. Built creative campaigns for global brands. Exhibited at the World Expo. Art collector and news journalist.