Eva Ho

Who they are

Eva Ho is General Partner at Fika Ventures — co-founded Navigating Cancer in 2008 and Susa Ventures in 2012 before launching Fika, an LA-based seed fund with over $350 million in assets under management.

Person

Eva Ho graduated from Harvard with a BA in 1994, then earned an MBA from Cornell Johnson in 1998 — a classic east-coast academic track before she moved into the early internet wave. Her operator years took her through Applied Semantics, Overture Services, and MyLife.com, building marketing and founding-executive muscle at each stop. In 2008, before most operators thought about building, she co-founded Navigating Cancer, a health startup out of Seattle. She also ran The Greetery, an online stationery company — a side project that signals she builds things for the craft of it, not just for the returns. That founder experience fed directly into VC: she co-founded Susa Ventures in 2012 as a seed fund in San Francisco focused on data and technology, then co-founded Fika Ventures in 2016 as an LA-based seed fund investing in data and AI-enabled technologies. In 2024 she launched Deco Base, a new startup, while stepping back from Fika after its current fund is deployed. The through-line is operator first, investor second — she built companies before she backed them, and her public voice on the Vitalize, CapStack, and LA Venture podcasts returns again and again to that operator-to-investor transition and what authenticity means in pitching.

Network

Eva's named mentor is Ulrich Aldag, to whom she paid public tribute on LinkedIn. She serves on the boards of UCLA Technology Development Group (since March 2020), Common Crawl Foundation (since March 2024), and Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs (since April 2026), and acts as a GP Advisor at Screendoor, which supports emerging VC managers. Her portfolio includes FieldAI (AI and robotics) and Chowbus (restaurant tech focused on immigrant entrepreneurs), and she is a Mucker Capital mentor.

Ulrich Aldag· Mentor to Eva Ho

How they likely show up

Co-founded three distinct ventures (Navigating Cancer, Susa Ventures, Fika Ventures) across different domains → high pattern of starting from scratch rather than inheriting infrastructure; likely pushes for first-principles thinking in founders she backs.
Launched Deco Base in 2024 while winding down her Fika role → does not sit still between chapters; probably uncomfortable in purely advisory or passive positions.
Active on podcasts (Vitalize, CapStack, LA Venture, The Room) and co-chaired Fortune BrainstormTech → comfortable on stage and in conversation, but her public content is thematic (operator-to-investor, authenticity in pitching) rather than promotional.
Board seats at UCLA TDG, Common Crawl Foundation, and Pat Brown Institute span tech commercialization, open-data infrastructure, and public affairs → thinks across sectors and takes institutional governance seriously, not just startup ecosystems.
Hybrid role type (operator, founder, investor, advisor) across a career spanning city government, startups, and VC → expects her counterparts to hold multiple lenses at once, not just one job title's perspective.
Featured by All Raise and spoke publicly on 'turning life's challenges into an unfair advantage' (Carta Innovator Stories) → comfortable making personal experience part of a professional narrative; responds well to candor.

Conversation tips

→ Ask specifically about the operator-to-investor transition — it's a named theme in her podcast appearances, and she has a considered take, not a rehearsed answer.
→ Reference Deco Base if you can — it's the freshest thing she's building and most people won't have asked her about it yet.
→ Don't use corporate VC framing ('deal flow', 'thesis alignment') as an opener — her public voice emphasizes authenticity and founder empathy over institutional process.
→ She has backed immigrant entrepreneurs (Chowbus) and sits on public-affairs boards — if your work touches civic or underrepresented communities, that's a genuine point of connection, not a perfunctory one.
→ She mentors at Mucker Capital and advises Screendoor (emerging managers) — if you're an emerging fund manager or early-stage founder, mention that context early; it's a lane she actively operates in.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Deco Base — she launched a new startup in 2024 while stepping back from Fika, which is an unusual move for a VC; asking what she's building and why now will get a real answer, not a talking point.
Reference her Common Crawl Foundation board seat (since March 2024) — it's a pointed signal that she's thinking about open AI infrastructure at a governance level, not just portfolio returns.
Mention Navigating Cancer — she co-founded a health startup in 2008, years before 'digital health' was a category; it's the origin of her founder credibility and most people lead with her VC career instead.

Discovery questions

You co-founded Susa in San Francisco and Fika in LA — how different are those founder communities, and has that gap narrowed as LA's tech scene has matured?
You're on the board of Common Crawl and you've backed AI companies like FieldAI — how do you think about open data infrastructure as both a public good and a competitive input for your portfolio?
You launched Deco Base while winding down your Fika role — what made this the moment to go back to operating rather than starting another fund?

Avoid

Don't lead with questions about Fika's fund performance or AUM — she has publicly stepped back from the firm and is mid-chapter on something new; treating Fika as her current identity will signal you haven't done the work.

Make it yours