Q&A with Ted Wang, a partner at micro VC fund Cowboy Ventures, founded by Aileen Lee, on risk rewards of seed rounds, changes since its first fund, and more
For our most recent Seed Series we are talking with Ted Wang, the second partner at Cowboy Ventures, a micro VC fund based in Silicon Valley founded by Aileen Lee.
Context & Ripple Effects
This Q&A lands mid-arc for Cowboy Ventures: the firm added Ted Wang as its second partner back in 2017, when the prominent startup lawyer left private practice to join Aileen Lee's micro fund, and this interview is effectively his public accounting of how the firm and the seed market have shifted since that first fund.
First-order effects
- Founders weighing a seed round get a practitioner's risk-reward framework from Wang at precisely the moment the seed landscape is being reshaped by big VCs competing downstream — the choice between a seed-focused micro fund and a multistage lead is now a live strategic decision, not a default.
Second-order effects
- Rivals feel the same squeeze: Pear's co-founders just raised $160M specifically to double down on seed while multistage giants push earlier, forcing micro funds like Cowboy to compete on conviction and founder service rather than check size.
- Capital is flooding into the tier from new directions — Tiger Global partners have committed $1B of their own cash to early-stage funds — which raises the bar for what a two-partner shop must offer to win allocation.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the seed tier fragments structurally: the rise of solo capitalists and AngelList's Rolling Venture Fund lowers the cost of launching a seed vehicle, so firms like Cowboy compete not just with big VCs but with an expanding long tail of sub-$50M operators.
The trend: Seed investing is crowding and professionalizing, with micro funds like Cowboy Ventures squeezed between multistage giants moving early and a proliferating class of small-fund operators.