# Oyster Ventures

> Oyster Ventures is a VC fund in San Francisco backing FinTech and Software. See 72 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: San Francisco, United States
- Total investments: 72
- Last investment: Oct 2025
- Lead investor: 4%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oyster-vc/
- Website: https://oyster.vc

Oyster Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in exceptional new-frontier technology companies. They target companies that bring liquidity and efficiency to antiquated industries, companies that enable globalization, with leverage to massively scale. It also specializes in early-stage investments in startups in fintech, with a focus onblockchain, crypto, E-commerce, market place, artificial intelligence, fintech, media tech, and SaaS companies. Oyster Ventures was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Oyster Ventures. Shizune tracks 4 team members at Oyster Ventures. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/oyster-ventures?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $150k–$4M |
| Series A | $4M–$45M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FinTech | 16 | 22% |
| Software | 16 | 22% |
| Financial Services | 14 | 19% |
| Internet | 11 | 15% |
| Blockchain | 8 | 11% |

120 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 36 | 50% |
| Funding Round | 9 | 13% |
| Series A | 8 | 11% |
| Initial Coin Offering | 4 | 6% |
| Pre-Seed | 3 | 4% |

10 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 38 | 53% |
| Hong Kong | 3 | 4% |
| Singapore | 3 | 4% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 3% |
| India | 1 | 1% |

12 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sophie Liao | Founding Partner | 16 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sophie-liao |
| Dennis Liu | Principle | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dennis-liu-f12e |
| Kenneth Ballenegger | Managing Partner | 11 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kenneth-ballenegger-9ad3 |
| Kenneth Ballenegger | Managing Partner | 39 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kenneth-ballenegger |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Ridepanda | Ridepanda is an online e-ride shop that offers electric vehicles with maintenance support and theft protection. | $12.6M | Venture - Series Unknown | Oct 29, 2025 |  |
| Sogni AI | Sogni AI functions as a platform for decentralized creative AI. | $2M | Pre-Seed | Mar 11, 2025 |  |
| New Social Theory | New Social Theory is a FinTech company focused on empowering the creator economy. We believe that the future of content and commerce lies in fostering deeper connections between creators and their passionate fan bases. | $2.7M |  | Jan 15, 2025 |  |
| Ridepanda | Ridepanda is an online e-ride shop that offers electric vehicles with maintenance support and theft protection. | $7.5M | Seed | Nov 09, 2023 |  |
| Conductive.ai | Conductive.ai creates software for game developers to reward player engagement. |  | Seed | Aug 01, 2023 |  |
| Rithmm | Rithmm is personalized predictive analytics for sports betting. Using unique analytical algorithms, Rithmm assists people in placing wise bets with simple models to create and get evaluations and predictions for every game. | $2M | Seed | Jun 05, 2023 |  |
| Advance Tech Lending | Advance Tech Lending is an online salary loans provider. They help employees cover their daily financial needs with a click of a button. They don’t charge interest, just a processing fee to get funds to you immediately. | $16M | Series A | Mar 29, 2023 |  |
| Advance Tech Lending | Advance Tech Lending is an online salary loans provider. They help employees cover their daily financial needs with a click of a button. They don’t charge interest, just a processing fee to get funds to you immediately. | $16M | Seed | Mar 29, 2023 |  |
| Advance Tech Lending | Advance Tech Lending is an online salary loans provider. They help employees cover their daily financial needs with a click of a button. They don’t charge interest, just a processing fee to get funds to you immediately. | $3.9M | Seed | Dec 22, 2022 |  |
| Rent Small Small | Rent Small Small is a Nigeria-leading prop-tech platform providing a unique rental solution to Nigerians in order to improve the home-seekers rental experience and increase homeowner's occupancy rate.Our business model is unique as it allows verified tenants to find a property on the go, stay within budget, and pay rent flexibly. We providefirst-of-its-kind rent insurance for property owners against rent default, and unlike traditional agents, we don’t charge agency and legal fee.Our mandate is to provide suitable and affordable homes for home-seekers, influence the conception and birth of new homes to boost the livelihood and productivity of Nigerian youths, and help homeowners make their property rentable and profitable. | $2M | Seed | Oct 31, 2022 |  |

10 of 72 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Y Combinator](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/y-combinator) — VC Fund, 10 deals together
- [Soma Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/soma-capital) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Winklevoss Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/winklevoss-capital) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [FBG Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/fbg-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [MetaStable Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/metastable-capital) — VC Fund, 4 deals together
- [NGC Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/neo-global-capital-ngc) — VC Fund, 4 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does Oyster Ventures invest in?

Oyster Ventures invests primarily in FinTech, Software and Financial Services startups, most often at Seed and Funding Round stage. Most of the 72 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Oyster Ventures's check size?

Oyster Ventures typically joins rounds of $150k–$4M at Seed and $4M–$45M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Oyster Ventures participates in.

### How do I contact Oyster Ventures?

Public channels for Oyster Ventures include LinkedIn 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 Oyster Ventures?

The team at Oyster Ventures includes Sophie Liao (Founding Partner), Dennis Liu (Principle) and Kenneth Ballenegger (Managing Partner). 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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