Tara Tan

Managing Partner at Strange Ventures

San Francisco, California

Overview

Tara Tan is the General Partner at Strange Ventures, a venture capital firm in San Francisco, specializing in investing in startups focused on creativity and computing. With a background in design and technology, Tara has held key roles at IDEO, Formlabs, and Studio Now, showcasing a successful career in venture capital and design leadership.

Work Experience

Strange Ventures

Founder and Managing Partner
2022 - Current
The biggest ideas are always a little strange at the start. Strange Ventures is a first-check VC firm investing in the future of creativity. We seek to be the first creative and capital partners to deeply technical software founders.

IDEO

Senior Director (Investing)
2021 - 2022
Investor at IDEO Ventures. Led investments in Moment (acq), EarlyBird, Syng, Sequin Financial, Lifescore, Kiddiwinks, OnBrand, Huddle.
General Partner & Co-Founder at IDEO CoLab Ventures
2018 - 2021
Design-driven investor backing founders in crypto and Web3. One of the earliest to champion the need for design in blockchain. Key early-stage investments include Near Protocol, Ethereum, River Financial,
Venture Studio Lead, IDEO CoLab
2016 - 2018
Incubated and launched ventures in crypto and AI. We were one of the earliest creative voices, and helped launch the first dApp on Ethereum in 2017. Fun fact: the first NFT standards ERC-721 were drafted in the IDEO offices!

Formlabs

Design Director
2014 - 2016
Built an all-star team designing product experiences and market launches. Led brand and positioning, grew social presence by over 350%. Drove key marketing efforts in new markets like China and Japan.

Formlabs develops and manufactures 3D printers and software for the industrial sector.

Raised $253,699,968.00 from SoftBank Vision Fund.

formlabs.com

Studio Now

Founder & Creative Director
2011 - 2014
Led teams to design and build immersive design and technology experiences. We were invited to tour the works at international events like the Shanghai World Expo, Singapore Arts Festival, Tokyo Festival of Arts, where it premiered to thousands of people. It was a wild ride.

10AM Asia

Senior Creative
2010 - 2012
Built brand and go-to-market strategy for national and regional brands. Understood how businesses could leverage creativity to launch new strategies, products, and ventures.