Goodwater Capital is a consumer technology venture firm based in Burlingame, California. Eric Kim and Burç Kayahan co-founded the firm in 2014 after both held senior roles at eBay and its ventures arm. The firm takes a systematic, data-driven approach to identifying high-growth consumer platforms – building proprietary models to assess user engagement, retention, and monetization potential before writing checks.
The firm concentrates on consumer internet businesses globally, with particular depth in North America, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Goodwater raised progressively larger funds through the 2010s, and by 2021 had closed a vehicle reported at approximately $1 billion, though the firm has not formally disclosed total AUM. Its investor base includes endowments and family offices. Public filings via the SEC confirm multiple fund registrations under the Goodwater Capital name.
Goodwater publishes annual consumer technology research – breakdowns of app economics, retention benchmarks, and category forecasts – which has helped build its profile among founders seeking a data-literate partner rather than a purely relationship-driven firm.
Notable investments
- Kakao – South Korean super-app and messaging giant; one of Goodwater's most cited bets on non-US consumer internet.
- Grab – Southeast Asian ride-hailing and fintech platform; backed early before its 2021 Nasdaq SPAC listing.
- Coupang – South Korean e-commerce leader; IPO'd on the NYSE in 2021 at a ~$60 billion valuation.
- Robinhood – US retail brokerage that democratized commission-free trading; crypto trading became a significant revenue line post-2020.
- Credit Karma – personal finance platform acquired by Intuit in 2020 for approximately $7.1 billion.
- Discord – gaming and community chat platform; became a key infrastructure layer for crypto and NFT communities.
- Duolingo – language-learning app; IPO'd in 2021 and reached a multi-billion dollar market cap.
- Brex – corporate fintech targeting startups; raised at a $12 billion valuation as of 2022.
Public information on direct crypto-native investments by Goodwater Capital is limited. The firm's fintech exposure – Robinhood, Brex, and similar – gives it indirect positioning in digital assets, but Goodwater has not publicly announced dedicated web3 or blockchain fund vehicles as of early 2026.
Team
Eric Kim co-leads the firm. Before Goodwater, he was a partner at Battery Ventures and held operating roles at eBay. He focuses on identifying durable consumer habits and has been the primary voice in the firm's published research. Burç Kayahan co-founded the firm alongside Kim and brings a quantitative background to portfolio analysis. Beyond the two co-founders, Goodwater employs a small investment team; detailed partner-level bios beyond Kim and Kayahan are not widely published. The firm's lean structure reflects a deliberate preference for concentrated decision-making.
Recent activity
Goodwater has maintained a relatively quiet public profile through 2024 and into 2025. No major new fund announcements have been confirmed in press coverage through early 2026. The firm continued to participate in follow-on rounds for select portfolio companies and published its annual consumer app benchmarking reports, which track metrics across categories including fintech, social, and health. These reports are freely distributed and serve as a soft marketing tool for the firm's thesis.
The macro environment – higher interest rates, compressed consumer tech multiples, and a slower IPO window – has constrained exits across Goodwater's vintage. Coupang and Grab both traded below their peak valuations for extended periods, which affected paper returns for funds with exposure. That said, Credit Karma's Intuit exit and Robinhood's public listing represented realized liquidity events at significant multiples for early investors.
Goodwater's longer-term positioning in consumer fintech – a category where crypto rails and digital wallets increasingly intersect with mainstream apps – gives it organic exposure to the sector without a dedicated crypto mandate. As consumer crypto products mature beyond speculation into payments and savings, firms like Goodwater with deep retail user-behavior expertise may find natural on-ramps. Whether the firm formalizes that interest into a stated thesis remains to be seen.
