Hana Ventures, Hana S&B Launch First Joint $30M Fund for Overlooked Founders

Hana Ventures and Hana S&B have launched "a first joint $30M fund for second-chance startups," Dealroom reported — the debut co-managed vehicle between the two Hana venture arms.

The pool writes checks into founders excluded from mainstream venture pipelines. Dealroom's coverage of the launch put the fund size at $30 million and labeled it the first co-managed vehicle between Hana Ventures and Hana S&B.

What's a second-chance startup?

The label, as Dealroom uses it, covers founders turned down by top-tier venture firms or bypassed by traditional founder pipelines. That's a wide bucket — it includes first-time founders without name-brand degrees, founders from non-elite geographies, and operators who never held roles at the consumer-tech names that dominate VC sourcing networks.

Why does the category need its own fund?

Mainstream VC diligence often screens for pedigree signals: previous employer brand, alma mater, demo-day cohort. Founders without those signals get filtered out before they reach a partner meeting. A dedicated fund skips that filter by design and writes tickets on thesis instead of pedigree.

Why a joint fund?

Hana Ventures runs early-stage bets. Hana S&B runs strategic balance-sheet investments. Both sit inside the Hana venture stack. A shared vehicle gives the two units one capital pool and one diligence process for overlooked companies, replacing what would otherwise be two parallel deal pipelines running side-by-side.

What's the deployment plan?

The $30 million pool funds checks into second-chance founders. Both arms co-source deals, share diligence, and write tickets from the same vehicle. Dealroom reported the fund size at launch; the joint structure is the launch's headline.

What's the structural angle?

A dedicated, jointly backed fund signals institutional weight behind a cohort generalist VCs often sideline. The structure also gives portfolio companies one entry point into the Hana venture stack instead of two separate processes that may or may not co-invest on the same round. For portfolio companies, that means one term sheet, one set of covenants, one cap-table update.

What this changes for founders

Companies that land in the new fund now have one application path into both Hana venture arms, not two. For an overlooked founder who's heard "no" from other VCs, a single institutional entry point can save months of duplicated diligence and let them get back to building. The trade-off: the fund will likely carry Hana-mandated reporting requirements, given Hana S&B's strategic-balance-sheet involvement.

Why Korean VCs should pay attention

Second-chance founder theses have mostly run out of US-based funds over the past decade. A major Korean financial group putting institutional capital behind the same idea at home means Korean founders now have a domestic option that doesn't require matching US fund theses.

What to watch

Whether portfolio companies can clear Series A from third-party capital is the open test. Second-chance founders consistently hit higher Series A friction; the next-round performance of this fund's first cohort will decide if the joint-vehicle model holds up at scale.

The bottom line

A $30 million joint fund doesn't move the needle on Korean venture totals, but it does formalize overlooked founders as a category worth a dedicated capital pool at one of Korea's largest financial groups. If the first cohort hits its Series A milestones, expect the model to copy fast across other Korean incumbents.