Katelin Holloway

Who they are

Katelin Holloway is Founding Partner at Seven Seven Six — a former public school teacher who ran People at Reddit and Pixar before co-founding a VC firm with its own proprietary founder-scoring tool, Cerebro.

Person

Katelin joined Seven Seven Six in 2020 when it was newly founded alongside Alexis Ohanian — she came in as a founding partner, not a hire, which sets the tone for everything that follows. Before that she was a Partner/Investor at Initialized Capital, but her operating roots run deeper: she was VP of People and Culture at Reddit, where she spoke at LinkedIn Talent Connect as its Chief People Officer, and before Reddit she held HR and operations roles at Klout and Pixar Animation Studios. Earlier still, she was at Palantir Technologies. She started her career as a public school teacher — a background she credits for shaping how she thinks about people development and culture. The through-line is someone who built people functions inside high-velocity consumer and tech companies, then moved upstream to apply that lens to early-stage investing. She writes at katelinholloway.com and posts on LinkedIn on people and culture, founder mental health, parental inclusion, and womxn in the workforce — practical operator themes, not abstract theory. She spoke at the 2026 HumanX Conference, Web Summit Lisbon 2024 on where VC dollars go next, and on the Capital Allocators podcast on the human side of venture investing.

Company

Seven Seven Six has raised over $1 billion across three funds since its 2020 founding — a notable clip for a firm that operates as much like a technology company as a traditional VC. Its most recent publicly noted deal was leading Interlune's $18 million seed round in March 2024, backing what it describes as the first company to commercialize off-planet resources. The firm runs Cerebro, a proprietary operating system used to score founders on product and traits like coachability, and to manage portfolio monitoring and LP relations — Katelin's HR background is baked directly into the investment process. Seven Seven Six invests across technology, fintech, healthcare, space, clean tech, and Web 3.0, with a stated emphasis on national-security technologies as a growing focus area. It is headquartered in Jupiter, Florida.

Market

Seven Seven Six competes in the early-stage VC space against firms including Initialized Capital and Y Combinator. The broader environment for tech investors is shaped by increased regulatory scrutiny — antitrust, data privacy, and monopolistic practices — alongside US-China geopolitical tensions that can disrupt supply chains and market access for portfolio companies operating in hardware, space, and clean tech.

Network

Katelin's closest working relationship is with Alexis Ohanian, Seven Seven Six's co-founder, with whom she co-leads the firm and previously collaborated at Initialized Capital. Chris Vanzetta is a fellow partner at Seven Seven Six. Her prior operating career at Reddit and Initialized Capital means her broader network runs deep into Bay Area consumer tech and the people-ops community.

Alexis Ohanian· Co-founder, Seven Seven Six
Chris Vanzetta· Partner, Seven Seven Six

How they likely show up

Started as a public school teacher before moving into HR and then VC → likely brings a coaching and development orientation to founder relationships, not just capital deployment.
Built people functions at Pixar, Klout, and Reddit before becoming an investor → will evaluate operational health and culture with operator-level scrutiny, not just market-size thinking.
Co-built Cerebro, a tool that scores founders on coachability and product traits → brings a systems and measurement mindset to what most investors treat as soft intuition.
Founding Partner (not a hire) at Seven Seven Six → high agency, will have strong opinions on firm strategy and is not executing someone else's playbook.
Hybrid role type across operating and investing careers → comfortable context-switching between portfolio-support work and deal-level judgment.
Active public speaker at HumanX 2026, Web Summit 2024, and Capital Allocators podcast → comfortable being visible and representing a point of view in public forums.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific theme from her katelinholloway.com writing — founder mental health or parental inclusion — to signal you've engaged with her actual perspective, not just her LinkedIn title.
→ Ask about Cerebro specifically: she built a tool that quantifies coachability, which is an unusual conviction to act on — she'll have a lot to say about why.
→ Her teaching background is not a footnote; it's how she frames people development. Bringing it up naturally will open a richer conversation than starting with her VC track record.
→ She speaks and invests at the intersection of human capital and early-stage tech — frame any question around founder or team dynamics rather than pure market sizing.
→ Don't treat her as secondary to Ohanian — she is a co-founder of the firm with her own investing thesis, not a people-ops add-on to a generalist fund.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Cerebro — Seven Seven Six built a proprietary tool that scores founders on traits like coachability, which is a direct expression of Katelin's HR background inside an investing context. It's a specific and unusual bet worth asking about.
Reference the Interlune seed lead in March 2024 — backing the first company to commercialize off-planet resources is a pointed move for a firm that now cites national-security tech as a focus area. It's a concrete recent signal of where the firm is heading.
Mention her Capital Allocators podcast episode on the human side of venture investing — she's gone on record about what it means to bring a people-ops lens to VC, and it's a natural way to get into her actual investment thesis.

Discovery questions

How has your experience building the people function at Reddit changed the way you evaluate founder-team dynamics at the seed stage — what do most investors miss?
Cerebro scores founders on coachability and product traits — how has that tool evolved since you launched it, and has it ever contradicted your gut on a deal?
The Interlune investment puts Seven Seven Six into space economy and off-planet resources — how does that connect to the national-security tech focus, and is that a deliberate thesis shift for the firm?

Avoid

Don't frame people and culture as a soft or secondary consideration — her entire investing thesis is built on the premise that human capital is a primary driver of returns, and she'll disengage quickly if you treat it as a nice-to-have.

Make it yours