Pocket Sun was born in China. In 2009, she arrived in the US to study Business Administration at Virginia’s William & Mary College. She started working in a corporate marketing firm. Nevertheless, she had low opportunities to get a work visa. She applied to the H-1B program, which allows foreigners to vie for a limited number of places each year, selected at random.
She didn’t’ won the lottery.
As she was unable to work, she stayed in the US as a postgraduate student in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Southern California.
In a Venture Capital program at Standford University, Pocket Sun met her business partner Elizabeth Galbut. Both of them identified the women-run business as an under-served and potentially highly profitable niche. Women-run business raises less than half of the venture funding. However, they use to earn 2.5 times more per dollar invested.
Sun and her partner started SoGal Ventures, a $15M fund that invests just in women-run businesses. After two years, 80% of its portfolio got additional capital and garnered higher valuations. An overperformance compared with the average 30% that achieve seed-stage funded portfolio companies.
Currently, SoGal Ventures invests in the US and Asia. The VC firm had founded GuavaPass, Mogul, Hidrate, Kairos, NailSnaps, AK Valley, among other companies. Consumer Services and HealtTech are her fund’s investment verticals.
Pocket Sun became one of the youngest people to ever be on the cover of Forbes Magazine at the age of 24. She was included in Forbes 30 Under 30 in VC, Prestige 40 Under 40, and Asian Unstoppables. She uses to speak to organizations like the National University of Singapore, London Business School, IEBE, SLUSH, Silicon Dragon, Startup Village, or TEDx.
