Lily Joo

Who they are

Lily Joo is Founding Partner of 10K Ventures — a Berlin-based personal investment arm she built from scratch in 2019, running it alongside a Venture Partner role at VentureFriends covering DACH and Southern Europe.

Person

Lily Joo studied Business Administration at Georgia Tech, then built her way into European venture from Berlin. She founded 10K Ventures in 2019 as her personal investment arm — a high-conviction vehicle that builds, acquires, and invests in companies across Europe and beyond, now with a portfolio of 9 companies. Alongside that, she serves as Venture Partner for DACH and Southern Europe at VentureFriends. Her board seats tell you where she's putting real conviction: ValerIA (AI-powered HR management) and Edgee (an open-source edge computing platform). She's also an LP in Newtopia VC, a $50M early-stage fund focused on Latin America — a bet on an emerging market most Berlin VCs ignore. She speaks publicly on AI's impact on company building and financing — she took the stage at AI Summit Barcelona in 2025 on exactly that theme — and moderates panels on the leap from big-company careers to startups. Fluent in English and Korean, she's the kind of investor who shows up at 4YFN Barcelona in 2026 as an attending investor, keeping geographic coverage wide.

Company

10K Ventures enters 2026 as a lean, two-person operation with a portfolio of 9 companies and 17 co-investors. As of late 2024, the firm had not made new investments in 2025, suggesting a period of portfolio management rather than active deployment. The firm operates as Lily's personal investment vehicle — high-conviction, selective, not running a traditional fund cycle. Its co-investor network includes SevenX as a notable partner across shared portfolio companies.

Market

10K Ventures operates in the early-stage European venture market at a moment when capital is concentrating heavily in AI mega-rounds and the broader 2025–2026 environment has been shaped by record-setting global funding, especially in AI. Geopolitical dynamics — trade policy shifts, increased defense spending, and regulatory scrutiny on AI — are reshaping where and how European VCs deploy. As a small, founder-operator vehicle, 10K Ventures sits in a different lane from the large platform funds, competing and co-investing with firms like SevenX rather than chasing the same mega-rounds.

Network

No named relationship edges are available in the data. Her network can be inferred from institutional affiliations: she co-invests alongside 17 investors in the 10K Ventures portfolio, holds board seats at ValerIA and Edgee, and is an LP at Newtopia VC. Her Venture Partner role at VentureFriends connects her into that fund's broader DACH and Southern European deal flow.

How they likely show up

  • Founded 10K Ventures in 2019 and has run it for 6+ years as a two-person shop → operates with a high degree of autonomy and is comfortable making decisions without institutional committee overhead.
  • Holds active board seats at both ValerIA and Edgee → goes beyond writing checks; expects to be operationally involved with portfolio companies.
  • LP in Newtopia VC (Latin America) while based in Berlin and covering DACH and Southern Europe → thinks cross-regionally, not just within her immediate geography.
  • Active public speaker on AI and founder dynamics (AI Summit Barcelona 2025, Panathēnea 2025) → comfortable as a visible voice, probably engages well when asked for a genuine take on a hard market question.
  • Portfolio of 9 companies with a small team → runs a concentrated, high-conviction book rather than a spray-and-pray approach; likely spends real time per company.
  • Fluent in Korean and English, based in Berlin → cross-cultural fluency is a practical asset she brings to deals, not just a footnote.

Conversation tips

  • → Reference her 2025 AI Summit Barcelona talk specifically — she spoke on AI rewriting the fundamentals of company building and financing, so she has a formed view; ask her where she's seen it play out in a portfolio company.
  • → Don't pitch Southern Europe or DACH as an 'emerging opportunity' — she covers it daily at VentureFriends and has done so for years; come with a specific observation about the market, not a thesis she already holds.
  • → Ask about the Newtopia LP bet — it's a deliberate move into Latin America from a Berlin base, and she'll have a reason for it worth hearing.
  • → She moderates panels on the big-company-to-startup transition, so if that's relevant to your conversation, she'll have structured views — not anecdotes.
  • → She runs a two-person firm by design; don't assume she's looking to scale the team or raise a formal fund — understand what 10K Ventures is before suggesting what it should become.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on her Edgee board seat — it's an open-source edge computing platform, an unusual infrastructure bet for a generalist investor, and she put conviction behind it with a board role.
  • Reference her AI Summit Barcelona 2025 talk on AI rewriting the fundamentals of company building and financing — it's specific enough that bringing it up signals you did the work, and she clearly has a thesis worth drawing out.
  • Lead with the Newtopia LP position — backing a $50M early-stage Latin America fund from Berlin is a deliberate geographic diversification call, and it's a concrete entry point into how she thinks about global capital allocation.

Discovery questions

  1. You hold board seats at both ValerIA and Edgee — how do you decide when a portfolio company warrants that level of involvement versus a more arms-length relationship?
  2. You spoke at AI Summit Barcelona on AI rewriting company-building fundamentals — where have you actually seen that play out in a company you're close to, rather than at the macro level?
  3. The 10K Ventures portfolio sits at 9 companies with no new investments reported in 2025 — is that a deliberate pause, or does the current AI mega-round environment just not fit what you're looking for?

Avoid

Don't treat her dual roles at 10K Ventures and VentureFriends as confusing or ask her to explain which hat she's wearing — she runs both intentionally and the distinction is clear to her.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on July 1, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →