An a16z partner is leaving to raise $100m for consumer AI

Bryan Kim, a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, is setting up a new firm, Mido Capital. He plans to raise around $100m for its first fund, the Wall Street Journal reported. He filed formation papers in Delaware last month. The debut fund will back early-stage consumer AI and other startups. Kim did not comment.

Kim spent more than five years at the firm, on its consumer and AI-apps team. His standout bet was ElevenLabs, the voice-AI company. Andreessen co-led its Series A and B rounds, and it has grown into one of the category’s biggest names. He also backed Function Health, the invitations app Partiful and mental-health startup SlingshotAI. Before venture, he worked at Snap.

A contrarian corner of AI

Consumer AI is a narrow slice of the boom. Roughly 12% of about 26,000 AI and machine-learning companies are consumer-facing, according to PitchBook. And the money has been oddly flat. Strip out OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI, and investors put $17.5bn into consumer-AI startups last year, up just 3.6% on 2024.

The category also lives in OpenAI’s shadow. ChatGPT and a handful of platforms dominate how most people meet AI, so smaller apps struggle to stand out. Kim’s wager is that the interesting companies are not the ones trying to be OpenAI. They are the ones building on cheap, abundant intelligence rather than racing to supply it.

Small fund, crowded moment

The timing is pointed. The biggest firms are raising billions for AI, and a new crop of smaller funds is chasing the same founders. Kim’s $100m is modest against that, a focused bet rather than a landgrab. It also joins a steady drift of partners leaving big firms to run their own money.

When he announced his exit in April, Kim thanked a16z’s “consumer AI gang” and struck the founder’s note. “It is simply time to build. Now it’s time to paddle hard,” he wrote. His backers must now weigh whether a lean, consumer-first fund can beat the giants at the next consumer-facing hit.