Kent Goldman is the founder and managing director of Upside Partnership. See sector focus and contact routes.
Kent Goldman is the founder and managing director of Upside Partnership, a seed-stage venture capital firm he established in 2014 after serving as a partner at First Round Capital and an executive at Yahoo. His investment thesis focuses exclusively on true seed and pre-seed startups, targeting visionary founders across consumer technology, enterprise software, and fintech with a geographic emphasis on the United States. Goldman typically invests between $250,000 and $1.5 million per company, with a sweet spot around $800,000, and often acts as a lead investor in early rounds. Notable portfolio companies include Air, WhereHotel, Tonight, and Liftopia, which he backed during their earliest stages. A distinctive point of view he champions is giving every founding team a piece of his firm’s carry, effectively making them partners in Upside Partnership to align long-term incentives. He has publicly discussed the changing dynamics between seed-stage firms and emphasizes a founder-first approach in his investing philosophy.
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