Former Raya, Dispo exec has a new fund for the biggest out-of-favor tech: consumer

The idea of one day becoming a venture capitalist always loomed in the back of TJ Taylor’s mind.

After all, he had an extensive tech background. He co-founded a stock app and worked in community at the dating app Raya and the photo-sharing app Dispo. After leaving Dispo at the end of 2022 he found himself in a new situation. “It was the first time I didn’t know what was next,” he told TechCrunch. 

He wandered a bit, launching a startup consultancy where he said he loved working with early-staged teams. “A few people from my network just point blank said to me, ‘Why don’t you think about starting your own small fund?” he recalled. “I was like, ‘I don’t even know where to start.” 

So he became a scout at Headline, finding his footing in an industry that, at the time, was going through a historic downturn. Headline focused a lot on Series A and up, yet Taylor always found himself trying to pass along early-stage deals. When Headline would pass he would send it out to his own network until he realized well, his friends were right — he should just launch his own fund. 

So he established Hobart Ventures, named after one of the streets Taylor grew up on in South Central Los Angeles. He started working on it last December and publicly launched it a few days ago with some LPs already in tow. The firm is raising an $8 million fund dedicated to early-stage consumer startups. He hasn’t invested from the fund yet though says he has some startups to which he’s eager to cut checks. The average check size will be between $150,000 and $300,000, he said. 

His focus on consumer is a natural fit given his background. Consumer startups can be a hit or miss with investors. Some are quite bullish on the category while others sigh at its mention. Still, as Taylor pointed out, consumer is a very big category: Carta data found that consumer tech raised 7.1% of all venture funding last year, a slight dip from the years before but more than hardware, energy, and crypto. 

“As technology changes, macroeconomic climate changes, behavioral shifts happen, generational shifts happen. That presents opportunity, right?” he said, noting that society is going through a shift right now. “Consumer spending is still hot, right? Consumers are still spending money. Consumers will always find a way to spend money.” 

He says fundraising the fund hasn’t been too difficult, though notices investors are still not back to the free-flowing days of the ZIRP era. But he’s optimistic about the future of the industry, especially if the IPO market opens back up again and LPs can start getting profits returns and ready to reinvest. “I think obviously with interest rates cuts coming, there will be more side-lined LPs money or hopefully some distribution back to LPs to make investments in funds and startups.” 

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