Sarah Kunst

Who they are

Sarah Kunst is Managing Director at Cleo Capital — she founded Proday, a fitness startup she ran as CEO from 2015 to 2018, before pivoting to run a venture fund she launched in 2018.

Person

Sarah studied Advertising at Texas Christian University and then Michigan State University between 2004 and 2008 — an unusual entry point for someone who'd end up running a venture fund. Her early career ran through media and consumer brands, including an editor role at Marie Claire and time at Bumble. In 2015 she founded Proday, a fitness company she led as CEO through 2018 — hands-on operator experience before she moved to the investor side. She joined Cleo Capital in February 2018 when it was an early-stage fund writing $100K–$1M checks from pre-seed to Series C. She spoke at TechEU Summit 2026, and posts actively on LinkedIn across topics including venture capital, energy and fertilizer, healthcare innovation, IPO markets, and AI adoption — not a single-thesis voice but a range-reader. The through-line: media → operator → investor, each step accumulating a different kind of pattern recognition about how companies get built and sold.

Company

Cleo Capital's most recent move was launching a dedicated cybersecurity accelerator program in November 2024 — a signal that the fund is building programmatic bets beyond its generalist early-stage mandate. Sarah founded the firm in 2018 and it has been writing pre-seed to Series C checks in the $100K–$1M range. Her public content themes — energy and fertilizer, healthcare, AI adoption, IPO markets — suggest the portfolio thesis is broadening into industrial and deep-tech territory.

Market

Cleo Capital competes in the crowded early-stage venture market, where pre-seed and seed funds have proliferated significantly over the past decade. Possibly — its cybersecurity accelerator and emerging focus on energy and healthcare position it to differentiate from generalist micro-VCs that cluster in consumer and SaaS. Sarah's network — which visibly includes Sequoia's Roelof Botha and Acrew's Theresia Gouw — suggests access to co-investors above her typical check size.

Network

Possibly — Sarah's most visible investor relationships include Alfred Lin, Roelof Botha of Sequoia Capital, Theresia Gouw, and Alex Bangash, suggesting she moves in top-tier LP and co-investor circles. On the portfolio side, Julia Collins and Josh Goldman of KoBold Metals are named as portfolio founders, with KoBold operating in the AI-driven mineral exploration space.

How they likely show up

  • Long tenure at Cleo Capital since February 2018 → likely thinks in fund cycles and long holding periods, not short sprints.
  • Founded and operated Proday as CEO before becoming an investor → she has done the job; she'll spot founder excuses quickly.
  • Active LinkedIn poster across venture capital, energy, healthcare, IPO markets, and AI → comfortable being a public voice, engages with a wide range of topics rather than staying in one lane.
  • Career path from media/editorial (Marie Claire, Bumble) to operator to VC → pattern-matches on brand, narrative, and consumer behavior as much as on financials.
  • Spoke at TechEU Summit 2026 → comfortable on international stages, likely interested in cross-border deal flow.

Conversation tips

  • → Reference a specific LinkedIn post — she posts actively and on varied topics; showing you read one signals you did the work.
  • → Ask about the cybersecurity accelerator she launched in November 2024 — it's a concrete new initiative she can speak to with detail.
  • → Her Proday operating experience (2015–2018) is fair game — she ran a company before she funded them, and that arc is likely a point of pride.
  • → Don't treat her as a single-thesis investor — her public content spans energy, healthcare, AI, and IPOs, so engage with range, not just one sector.
  • → KoBold Metals is a named portfolio company; if you have a view on AI-driven resource exploration or climate-adjacent deep tech, that's a natural on-ramp.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on the cybersecurity accelerator she launched in November 2024 — it's a specific programmatic bet that signals where Cleo Capital is building beyond generalist early-stage investing.
  • Reference her Proday founding — she built and ran a fitness startup as CEO from 2015 to 2018 before pivoting to VC, which is an unusual operator-to-investor path worth unpacking.
  • Mention her TechEU Summit 2026 appearance and the energy-and-fertilizer thesis she's been posting about on LinkedIn — it's a pointed bet for a consumer-era VC fund to be making publicly.

Discovery questions

  1. You've posted publicly about energy and fertilizer as part of Cleo Capital's thesis — how did that sector become a conviction area for a fund that started as early-stage generalist?
  2. Having run Proday as CEO before becoming an investor, how does your operator experience change the way you evaluate founding teams now?
  3. The cybersecurity accelerator launched in November 2024 — what gap in the market were you trying to fill with a dedicated program rather than deal-by-deal investing?

Avoid

Don't pitch her on a deal by leading with hype or market-size slides — she ran a company, posts critically about AI adoption, and will engage with specifics over top-down narratives.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on June 5, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →