Hustle Fund Completes Founder Friends Event in Seoul
Early-stage fund Hustle Fund has completed its Founder Friends Seoul event, thanking the founders in attendance and stating they will return soon.
The main format of the event was a fireside chat followed by a Q&A session. The guest was Ian Park, founder of 주간실리콘밸리 (Weekly Silicon Valley), and the discussion partner was Hustle Fund General Partner Shiyan Koh. The registration page noted that the newsletter has tens of thousands of subscribers on Substack, focusing on Silicon Valley technology and entrepreneurship. The schedule ran from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM: starting with dinner and networking, followed by half an hour of discussion, half an hour of Q&A, and then continued networking. Ian Park is also a venture capital partner at Hustle Fund, having joined in March 2026 as announced by General Partner Eric Bahn. He previously worked as the head of a sovereign wealth fund's VC and as a partner at other funds.
The sponsors were Asan Nanum Foundation and Singapore Global Network. The former operates acceleration programs and the MARU community space under the name of the founder of the Hyundai Group, Chung Ju-yung, serving early-stage companies and social innovation; the latter is an official channel for global talent and enterprise networks in Singapore. The registration terms stated free entry, but participants agreed to receive follow-up communications from the organizers and partners.
This is not a one-off event. Hustle Fund has turned Founder Friends into a cross-city product: there are also events in Toronto, San Francisco, Singapore, and Washington during the same period, along with a Batter Up roadshow. The Seoul event can be traced back to the first session on January 20, 2026, and Founder Friends Korea appeared repeatedly in the schedules for April, October, and December of that year. The Seoul event is used to reach both Korean founders and investors moving between the Bay Area and East Asia.
The fund positions itself as an early check that "founders can come from anywhere." The event does not disclose the transaction amounts or project lists from that night; its function is to funnel Korean founders into its global activity pipeline, directing them towards membership products like Angel Squad and subsequent roadshows.
In market mechanics, the buyers are Seoul founders wanting to meet early-stage investors from Silicon Valley, while the sellers are Hustle Fund exchanging free networking events for email contacts, connections, and project flow. The event is driven by its autumn multi-city tour, not a single financing announcement. Funds were not exchanged on-site; the flow is project leads entering the fund's screening process, and local foundations gaining international exposure; the beneficiary is the sourcing density of the organizers, while the pressure is on event homogenization and the common loss of "free entry for marketing lists."
Source: Public information
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Hustle Fund is operated by Elizabeth Yin, Eric Bahn, and others, relying on high-frequency small checks and public events to build project flow, rather than relying on one or two large rounds. Ian Park has been brought into the partnership, functioning as a "Korea-Bay Area bilingual node": first managing sovereign fund LP checks, then making direct investments, followed by running Silicon Valley communications aimed at Korean readers, and finally converting newsletter readers into event attendees. After joining in March 2026, the Seoul event no longer only invites external founders but also includes its own team members in discussions.
The capital pathway is that events serve as channels. Asan Nanum provides venue and local legitimacy, Singapore Global Network offers cross-border networking, and Hustle Fund provides GP representation and follow-up co-investment opportunities. The motivation is not to sign term sheets that night but to lock in Korean early-stage companies ahead of the next stops in San Francisco and Singapore. Resource transfer is very specific: free events in exchange for contact information, Angel Squad members gain entry, and Batter Up turns the same group into roadshow targets. Money comes from fund management fees and subsequent carry, flowing back into the ongoing tour.
Comparable models include Y Combinator's city office hours, a16z's crypto meetups, and 500 Global's landing camps. Hustle Fund is in an expansion phase: five cities with seven events lined up, replicating the same "dinner-fireside chat-Q&A" template. Historical parallels include 500 Startups taking demo days to Asia in the 2010s and SoftBank Vision Fund using summits to source projects—lighter in form, but the logic is the same: first occupy the room, then capture equity.
The structural judgment belongs to the competition for entry before capital concentration. The mechanism is: early project information is scattered across various accelerators and chaebols in Seoul; whoever can cost-effectively guide founders from local rooms to the dollar fund calendar will capture pricing power first. Sponsoring foundations buy internationalization labels, funds buy project flow, and the room itself becomes a funnel.
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The true product of free networking events is the list.
Cross-city replication templates allow for faster project acquisition than deep cultivation in a single city.
Those who occupy the room first will set equity pricing later.