Jesse Genet

Genet was born in Detroit. The first venture she ran with her longtime partner Stephan Angoulvant (also known as Stephan Ango) was Inkodye, a water-based dye that develops color in sunlight and bonds with plant and animal fibers such as cotton, linen, wool, silk, suede and wood. Its Kickstarter campaign set a $50,000 goal and raised more than $250,000, after which the product was sold online and in retail stores.⁠[1][2]

Lumi began in 2012, when Genet and Angoulvant ran a Kickstarter campaign for a Lumi printing process based on Inkodye. The early Lumi was a customization toolkit for creators: users uploaded graphics such as logos or text through an app, and Lumi turned them into rubber stamps or silk screens shipped in kits with ink and tools. In March 2015 Lumi launched out of beta, having been bootstrapped apart from the $250,000 raised on Kickstarter and seed investment from Y Combinator.⁠[2]

Genet later recalled that much of what the team learned while making Inkodye concerned packaging: “A lot of what we learned was related to making custom packaging.” Lumi subsequently shifted to supplying custom packaging to e-commerce companies.⁠[1]

On February 14, 2018, Los Angeles-based Lumi announced a $9 million round led by Spark CapitalSpark CapitalSpark Capital is a U.S. venture capital firm founded in Boston in 2005, with offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston. Its early-stage and growth funds back technology businesses across fintech, enterprise software, AI and consumer products. Investments have included Twitter, Tumblr, Oculus, Plaid and Anthropic.Open the full entry, with Forerunner Ventures investing and earlier investor Homebrew participating; Homebrew, Lowercase Ventures and Ludlow Ventures had provided its seed funding. Lumi then supplied custom packaging and a management dashboard to direct-to-consumer brands including FabFitFun, BarkBox, MeUndies and Parachute Home, had a team of about 30, had launched 18,000 projects and shipped 25 million packaging units, and said it was profitable.⁠[1]

Genet described Lumi’s practice of producing packaging near each customer’s distribution center as “sustainability by default,” saying it cut thousands of transit miles.⁠[1]

On December 17, 2021, the e-commerce post-purchase platform Narvar announced its acquisition of Lumi; terms were not disclosed. Lumi then served more than 700 direct-to-consumer brands, including Parachute Home, Nutrafol and Misfits Market, connecting them online with packaging manufacturers. Speaking as Lumi’s CEO and co-founder, Genet said: “Lumi is joining forces with Narvar as ecommerce packaging hits the mainstream consciousness.”⁠[3]

On April 13, 2026, a16zAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry released “Building Agents at Home: Homeschooling, Parenting and More | The a16z Show,” in which Andreessen Horowitz’s Katherine Boyle and Sarah WangSarah Wang (a16z)Sarah Wang is a venture capitalist and general partner on the growth team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). She joined a16z in 2019 and leads growth-stage investments in AI, enterprise applications and infrastructure, having invested in companies including Character.AI, Wiz, Cursor, Temporal and Exa.Open the full entry spoke with Genet, with Erik TorenbergErik TorenbergErik Torenberg is a tech entrepreneur, investor, and podcast host who is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he invests and is responsible for marketing and the ecosystem network. He was the first employee of Product Hunt and founded or co-founded On Deck, Village Global, and Turpentine, long combining founder communities, expert content, and early-stage investing.Open the full entry as the show’s host. Introduced as a former Y Combinator founder who now homeschools her children, Genet described building 11 AI agents for coding, curriculum planning and household management, covering agent architecture, logging systems, a technical setup built on Obsidian, Claude Code and a Mac Mini and its security, AI-generated lesson plans, and a parenting approach described as “benevolent neglect.”⁠[4]

X: Public account: https://x.com/jessegenet (opens in a new window).⁠[4]