We Build Startup Infrastructure for Founder Outcomes
Founder VC is a venture infrastructure company. We combine capability, systems and, in time, capital to help founders succeed faster.
We exist to make startup success more repeatable.
Instead of betting on single companies, we build infrastructure that supports thousands of founders, and we advise the founders, investors and governments working to help them.
Capital is only one tool. Infrastructure is the advantage.
Our Mission
To build and support startup infrastructure that helps founders:
- Save time and money by finding what already exists
- Make revenue faster through the right sales channels
- Raise the right capital, or decide not to
Founder VC exists to close the gap between potential and progress, helping founders scale, exit well, and stay founder-led.
Our Story
Founder VC began in New Zealand, a well-connected but fragmented startup ecosystem.
We saw good founders losing time and money on discovery, working through dozens of portals, programmes and funding sources without clear direction.
So we built What Founders Want, the first layer of our infrastructure plan. It is a free, neutral reference platform for New Zealand founders. Founders pay nothing and providers cannot buy placement.
It has reached around 70,000 sessions since April 2025 with no paid marketing, run on about $200 a month.
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Our Philosophy: Capability Before Capital
Traditional venture capital focuses on deploying money.
Founder VC focuses on building capability first: the systems, knowledge and relationships that decide whether capital helps a company or hurts it.
- Save → Time and money kept in the business
- Make → Faster revenue and market access
- Raise → Better-matched capital and better exits
We build ecosystems that build companies.
Our Approach
1. Build Infrastructure
Bring fragmented startup resources, programmes and networks together in one place founders can use for free. What Founders Want is live in New Zealand, and the model can be built for other ecosystems.
2. Advise
Work directly with the people who shape founder outcomes:
- Founders and startups on go-to-market, fundraising decisions and exit readiness, with deep experience in EdTech and Asia
- Investors on founder-facing initiatives that founders use and that build deal flow
- Governments and ecosystem builders on founder support that founders actually use
Every engagement is led by our Managing Partner, with specialist advisors brought in where the work needs them.
3. Deploy Capital (Coming)
Invest in founders building durable companies. This is a future step, built on what the first two layers teach us.
Our Managing Partner
Lane Litz has built companies, sold one, and invested in others.
She was employee #6 at VIPKID, which grew from 10 students to 700,000+ and a $1.5B USD valuation. She co-founded Chatterize, an AI English app for children, and led it to acquisition by Edumaxi in 2022. As a Venture Partner at Icehouse Ventures, she led deals across climate, medtech, deep tech and SaaS.
She built What Founders Want from her own experience as a founder in New Zealand.
Our Global Vision
New Zealand is our prototype ecosystem, proof that founder-first infrastructure can be built and run at very low cost.
The same model can work in other markets: local directories, built around what founders in that market actually search for, run on the same rules. Free for founders, and no paid placement.
From New Zealand to the world, Founder VC builds the systems that make startup success more repeatable.
Get in touch
Tell us the decision in front of you and when it needs to be made. We'll read it properly and come back to you with whether we can help, how, and what it would involve.
If we're not the right fit, we'll say so, and point you to someone who is.