KdT Ventures

Co-founders and Managing Partners Cain McClary and Mack Kolarich lead the investment committee. KdT operates with a flat partnership structure typical of early-stage funds, where all general partners participate in final investment decisions. The scientific team — a distinguishing operational feature — conducts technical diligence and often advises on deal viability, but final check-writing authority rests with McClary and Kolarich.

KdT seeks teams with deep scientific expertise — often PhD-level founders emerging from academic labs — who are applying computational tools to biology, chemistry, or materials science problems. The firm prioritizes theses where software or AI meaningfully speeds up an industrial or therapeutic development cycle, not where it provides a marginal efficiency gain. KdT's scientific team evaluates the technical moat before a term sheet is ever drafted.

KdT actively leads pre-seed and seed rounds — a posture the firm established early to secure meaningful ownership in science-heavy startups where syndicate formation can be challenging. The firm will occasionally co-invest alongside other deep-tech specialists like Breakthrough Energy Ventures or Lux Capital, particularly in later rounds where capital requirements exceed its fund mandate.

KdT's sourcing model leans heavily on relationships within the academic spinout ecosystem — principal investigators, technology transfer offices at research universities, and venture-creation groups inside national labs. The firm's in-house science team also attends specialized technical conferences and reviews pre-print servers, giving it visibility into breakthroughs before they become broadly marketed funding opportunities. This contrasts with network-driven consumer-tech origination.

KdT closed its third fund in June 2023 at $160 million (per TechCrunch, June 2023). The firm does not publicly disclose remaining dry powder. While Fund III is the active primary vehicle, KdT may also reserve capacity in prior funds for follow-on investments in breakout portfolio companies.

KdT does not invest in enterprise SaaS, consumer internet, or traditional financial technology — sectors that constitute the bulk of early-stage venture deal flow. The firm also avoids therapeutics companies that are pursuing pure clinical-play strategies without a platform-technology underpinning. In practice, KdT will pass on any company whose core value proposition is not grounded in a scientific or engineering breakthrough in the physical world.

KdT maintains an in-house science team — an unusual resource for a firm its size — that assists portfolio companies with wet-lab experimental design, computational modeling, and navigating complex intellectual property landscapes. The firm also brokers introductions to downstream growth-equity investors and corporate partners, including industrial incumbents who may become development collaborators or acquirers.