# Employee Stock Option Fund

> Employee Stock Option Fund is a VC fund backing Software. See 110 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: San Mateo, United States
- Total investments: 110
- Last investment: Apr 2025
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/employee-stock-option-fund-eso-fund-/
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/ESOFUND
- Website: https://www.esofund.com
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/esofund

Employee Stock Option Fund is a VC fund in San Mateo focused on Software and Enterprise Software. The Employee Stock Option Fund provides current and former employees of venture-backed companies with financial help needed to exercise options and cover associated taxes. It has a due diligence strategy and transaction protocol to evaluate and close transactions very quickly.The ESO Fund provides a new approach to exercising stock options thatprovides superior ROI potential through leverage and tax optimization. The fund also provides individuals who have already exercised private stock options with partial liquidity on the same terms that allows the owners to recover capital and eliminate downside risk while still retaining the potential upside from the stock. ESO Fund was formed by Stephen Roberts, Jimmy Lackie, and Scott Chou in 2012.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Employee Stock Option Fund. Shizune tracks 11 team members at Employee Stock Option Fund. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/eso-fund?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 39 | 35% |
| Enterprise Software | 21 | 19% |
| SaaS | 20 | 18% |
| Information Technology | 17 | 15% |
| Analytics | 15 | 14% |

205 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Secondary Market | 33 | 30% |
| Series D | 11 | 10% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 10 | 9% |
| Series E | 9 | 8% |
| Series C | 8 | 7% |

19 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 106 | 96% |
| Canada | 1 | 1% |
| France | 1 | 1% |
| Australia | 1 | 1% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 1% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Bill Yu | Partner and Early Investor | 8 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bill-yu |
| Ken Goldman | Partner and Sr Client Specialist | 6 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ken-goldman-4 |
| James D. Lackie | Co-Founder and Managing partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/james-d-lackie |
| Jimmy Lackie | Co-Founder and Managing partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/jimmy-lackie |
| Michael Sousoulas | CFO | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/michael-sousoulas |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Braze | Braze is a comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers relevant and memorable experiences between consumers and the brands they love. Context underpins every Braze interaction, helping brands foster human connection with consumers through interactive conversations across channels that deliver value quickly and continuously. The companywas named a Leader in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Marketing Platforms and was recognized as one of Inc Magazine's 2019 Best Workplaces. Braze is headquartered in New York with offices in Chicago, London, San Francisco, and Singapore. Learn more at braze.com. | $139.2M | Post-IPO Equity | Apr 10, 2025 |  |
| CISO Global | CISO Global is an industry leader in Managed Cybersecurity and Compliance (MCCP) services with its exclusive MCCP+ managed cybersecurity and compliance services plus culture program. The company seeks to expand by acquiring world-class cybersecurity talent and utilizes the latest technology to create innovative solutions that protect the mostdemanding businesses and government organizations against continuing and emerging security threats. | $6.5M | Post-IPO Debt | Dec 16, 2024 |  |
| WeWork | The We Company is a platform for creators that transforms buildings into dynamic environments for creativity, focus, and collaboration. The company transform buildings into beautiful, collaborative workspaces and provide infrastructure, services, events, and tech so their members can focus on doing what they love.The We Company is formerly knownas "WeWork". It was established in 2018 and is headquartered in New York. | $450M | Post-IPO Equity | Apr 29, 2024 |  |
| Astria Therapeutics | Astria Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company devoted to developing life-changing therapies for allergic and immunologic diseases. The company is advancing a pipeline of therapeutic candidates, including Navenibart for Hereditary Angioedema and STAR-0310 for Atopic Dermatitis. Astria Therapeutics conducts clinical trials and research, guidedby the patient community, to create new treatments. | $125M | Post-IPO Equity | Jan 30, 2024 |  |
| DailyPay | DailyPay offers a platform that allows employees to access their earned wages before their scheduled payday. The service integrates with employer payroll systems and provides tools for financial wellness. DailyPay aims to improve employee retention and engagement through flexible pay access. | $75M |  | Jan 18, 2024 |  |
| CoreWeave | CoreWeave offers GPU-based compute resources, storage, and networking capabilities optimized for training and deploying machine learning models. Its platform includes Kubernetes-based environments, managed software services, and tools for monitoring system performance and cluster health. It enables organizations to run large-scale AI workloadsthrough dedicated infrastructure and configurable deployment options. The company supports developers and enterprises by providing scalable resources aligned with the requirements of data-intensive and compute-intensive applications. | $642M | Secondary Market | Dec 04, 2023 |  |
| Forward | Forward is a startup redesigning the way healthcare is delivered using all the technologies healthcare has neglected such as sensors, mobile, and AI.Forward was founded in January 2016 by former executives and engineering leaders from Google and Uber and led by serial entrepreneur Adrian Aoun. Forward is funded by investors and entrepreneursincluding First Round Capital, Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet chairman), Marc Benioff (Salesforce founder), Joe Lonsdale (Palantir founder), Joshua Kushner (Oscar co-founder), and Garrett Camp (Uber co-founder). | $100M | Series E | Nov 15, 2023 |  |
| ERGO NEXT Insurance | Next Insurance is an online-based insurance company for entrepreneurs and small businesses. The company's services feature claims investigation as soon as possible, with many being decision within 48 hours that helps its clients to get transparency. They use technology to eliminate agents and other expensive extras and give prices that areincredibly affordable. It also offers policies to a range of small businesses from general contractors to personal trainers. Next Insurance was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.. | $265M | Series F | Nov 01, 2023 |  |
| Builder.ai | Builder.ai is an AI-powered software designed to help build and operate software projects. Its platform and human-assisted AI helps enterprises, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to build, run, and scale their software without requiring technical expertise and any lines of code. | $250M | Series D | May 23, 2023 |  |
| Cadre | Cadre is an online marketplace that connects investors and operators of real estate. It enables investments and transactions, provides a sophisticated technology product for managing processes, and powers predictive analytics for its investors. Investors are able to sell their interest on the secondary marketplace thereby introducing liquidityinto an antiquated industry. They are able to gain transparency, efficiency, and liquidity through the use of its proprietary technology, and are able to make better, more data-driven decisions. Founded by Ryan Williams, and Josh and Jared Kushner, Cadre was launched in 2014. |  | Series D | Mar 15, 2023 |  |

10 of 110 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Raison Wealth](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/element-global-technologies-private-portfolio) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Insight Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/insight-partners) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Tiger Global Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tiger-global) — VC Fund, 7 deals together
- [Sequoia Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sequoia-capital) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [Accel](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/accel) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Andreessen Horowitz](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andreessen-horowitz) — VC Fund, 5 deals together

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- [Marco Valta](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/marco-valta) — Angel Investor

## FAQ

### What does Employee Stock Option Fund invest in?

Employee Stock Option Fund invests primarily in Software, Enterprise Software and SaaS startups, most often at Secondary Market and Series D stage. Most of the 110 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Employee Stock Option Fund?

Public channels for Employee Stock Option Fund include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### Who are the partners at Employee Stock Option Fund?

The team at Employee Stock Option Fund includes Bill Yu (Partner and Early Investor), Ken Goldman (Partner and Sr Client Specialist) and James D. Lackie (Co-Founder and Managing partner), among 11 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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