Shiyan Koh

Koh is from Singapore. In 2018, she recalled that she had first arrived in the United States about 18 years earlier to start university at Stanford and never imagined she would stay so long; she met Elizabeth Yin and Eric BahnEric BahnEric Bahn is a venture capitalist, co-founder and General Partner of the pre-seed investment firm Hustle Fund, and one of the co-creators of the angel investor community Angel Squad.Open the full entry in the dorms at Stanford University, and more than twenty years later the three ran Hustle Fund together.⁠[1][1][2]

Earlier in her career she worked at JPMorgan and was an investment professional at Bridgewater Associates and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP).⁠[3][4]

Koh spent nearly six years at the personal finance company NerdWallet, where she was last VP of business operations and corporate development; she described it as a rare chance to build a business from scratch with friends. At the end of March 2018, she left NerdWallet and moved back to Singapore. Over the following five months, she traveled to Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Myanmar to meet local entrepreneurs and investors while choosing between joining a company, starting a business, and raising a fund; after more than 100 conversations, she decided to join her old friends Elizabeth Yin and Eric Bahn at their new pre-seed fund, Hustle Fund.⁠[1][4][5][1][1][1]

That same year, she started a dinner group for women in tech in Singapore: she invited two women to dinner and asked each to bring a friend, and the group has since met monthly, rotating among members’ homes, growing only by word of mouth without public promotion. By 2026, the group had grown from its original 6 members to 55, about a third of them investors and a third operators, along with a core of founders and a few people in government; a former member who moved to Dubai started a similar group there.⁠[6][6][6][6][6][6]

On September 11, 2018, Koh wrote about why she joined Hustle Fund: the chance to build an asset management business with two friends she trusts and respects, invest in Southeast Asia, a region she is extremely bullish on, and work with people trying to build big, sustainable businesses. She saw Southeast Asia, with its young population, growing middle class, and annual GDP growth in excess of 5%, as a good market for starting and growing businesses; she said the three partners wanted to build an investment firm giving all entrepreneurs, regardless of resources or location, a shot at funding and coaching.⁠[5][5][5][5]

In September 2018, Hustle Fund closed its first fund at $11.5 million; Koh joined its team of general partners, based in Singapore to expand the firm’s reach in Southeast Asia. According to an SEC filing from October 2017, the fund had originally hoped to raise $50 million; Koh said the team was confident it could prove its investing hypothesis with $11.5 million, “This has allowed us to get to the business of backing founders faster,” and said the team wanted to be in the business for decades, so the first fund was just the beginning.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

Jeremy Au invited Koh to co-host a weekly podcast discussing Southeast Asia tech news. She was initially apprehensive about sharing her views in public but saw it as a way to challenge herself; in 2023 the two recorded 39 episodes together, covering topics including big raises, shutdowns, market and customer selection, and down rounds. She found that the audience included not only founders but also investors, lawyers, and service providers.⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

On August 7, 2024, Hustle Fund published an article written by Koh as Managing Partner describing, from a limited partner’s perspective, what Hustle Fund looks for when evaluating other funds: whether a fund has a distinctive edge in sourcing, winning deals, or post-investment support; how the general partners divide work and complement each other; whether economics and incentives are fair and help junior staff grow and enable succession; and portfolio construction, valuation discipline, exit strategy, and whether the managers can candidly discuss missed opportunities. She said that Hustle Fund finds solo GP funds harder to back unless they are very small.⁠[8][8][8][8][8][8][8]

As of October 2026, Koh serves on the boards of the Stanford Club of Singapore, Stanford Rugby, and Q Chamber, and co-created Angel Squad, a community for small-check angel investors, with Elizabeth Yin, Eric Bahn, and Brian Nichols.⁠[3][2][2]

Hustle Fund: Official website: https://www.hustlefund.vc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[9]

Personal website: https://www.shiyankoh.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10][3]

X: Public account: https://x.com/shiyankoh (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiyankoh/ (opens in a new window)⁠[9]