Zao Chen

Principal

Zao is a Principal on the Craft investment team. He focuses on investing in software companies with a particular interest in data infrastructure, AI infrastructure and developer tools. Zao enjoys partnering with companies to help scale their growth engines. He's worked with several Craft portfolio companies, including as Interim VP Finance at Supabase and Interim VP Finance & BizOps at Onehouse.


Prior to joining Craft, Zao was an investor at Georgian where he focused on growth equity investments in software. Zao began his career at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in the M&A group. He graduated from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology and was a member of varsity swimming.

Notable Investments

indicates board member or observer role

Zao Chen
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blog posts
Why We Invested
Sean Whitney
Zao Chen

Investing in Comfy: The Operating System for Generative Media

The question on every creative’s mind: As AI gets better at generating creative content, what role do the creators play in the process?

Why We Invested
Dan Moor
Michael Robinson
Zao Chen

WorkOS: Investing in Developer Infrastructure for Enterprise Readiness

WorkOS secures $100M Series C to eliminate the "enterprise readiness detour" that stalls SaaS and AI deals, offering developers a plug-in infrastructure layer — SSO, Directory Sync, RBAC and more — so companies can unlock enterprise sales in days rather than engineering it themselves over months.

Why We Invested
Michael Robinson
J Zac Stein
Zao Chen

Why We Invested in Starbridge

Craft Ventures leads Starbridge.ai's $42M Series A to power AI-driven intelligence for state, local, and education (SLED) procurement, with 150+ customers since early 2025 launch. Retry.

Craft Insights
Zao Chen
Michael Robinson
Aaron Cort

Inside Supabase’s Product & Community Led Growth

Supabase grows with product-led and open-source strategy, now powering 3.5M+ databases and backed by $200M Series D.

Why We Invested
Michael Robinson
Zao Chen

Why We Invested in Supabase

Craft Ventures co-led Supabase's $80M Series C. The Postgres-based platform helps developers build and scale apps quickly.

Why We Invested
Michael Robinson
Zao Chen

Why We Invested in Onehouse

We’re excited to announce that Craft led the $35M Series B round in Onehouse, the universal data lakehouse platform.