Kemp Au Ventures

[Update: Kemp Au Ventures’ first investment is now our first exit! Congrats to Singular Key on their acquisition by Ping Identity!]

Kemp Au Ventures invests in seed and early-stage tech companies.

Founded by Tom Kemp and Adam Au, we are entrepreneurs who founded and built multiple tech companies that either went public or were acquired by strategics or private equity buyers. We have built companies that have scaled from $0 to over $250m in revenue, were named a “Best Place to Work” by Glassdoor and Tom was even named a NorCal “Entrepreneur of the Year” Finalist by EY.

Tom and Adam are now focused on investing in new ventures from the next generation of entrepreneurs. We are not a VC fund; it’s just the two of us investing our own personal money in combination with us spending quality time helping you in your early company formation stage.

We invest and collaborate alongside other individuals and/or VC firms. Our check amounts range from $100-$500k. Our sweet spot is pre-seed, seed and/or seed+ investments, so we invest in you within the first year or so of your company’s formation. We typically invest in these four areas: (a) cybersecurity; (b) privacy; (c) developer productivity; and (d) next-gen SaaS apps. Initially our preference was investing in Bay Area companies, but we are finding exciting companies in Europe and Israel, so we have gone global with nearly half of our investments are outside of the US. Connect and contact us through LinkedIn if you want to talk.

Here are some of our current investments:

The Sensitive Data Cloud

Astrachain creates a fully packaged Privacy by Design solution, bringing the strongest privacy for your Sensitive Data via a simple & powerful API.

Simplifying the Complexity of Last Mile Logistics

SaaS solution that streamlines route planning and tracking.

AI-powered Platform for Geospatial Data Production

EyeVi Technologies offers an on-demand mapping technology for capturing and processing high accuracy geodata cost-effectively and fast.

AI Risk Management and Auditing Platform

Holistic AI is a platform provider for those wanting to harness AI ethically & safely – allowing our clients to monitor & evidence AI compliance with changing regulations & standards.

The Future of Privacy Engineering

PrivacyCode is the SaaS platform that translates complex privacy policies for developers.

Privacy Done Right

A fact-based solution for enterprise data privacy, with a systematic approach to mitigate reputation & legal risk in business networks.

Improving Developer Productivity with Front End Automation

Quest.AI empowers product development teams to build much faster and at higher quality than ever before.

Enabling Consumer Privacy

Round Robin helps consumers understand and assert their privacy rights.

Next Generation Data Security and Privacy Platform

Secuvy AI is a Data Privacy, Security and Governance platform, helping companies to build Privacy Compliance workflows for GDPR/CCPA etc.  

Personal Cybersecurity

Sunday Security identifies compliance and security risks associated with digital identities.

Next Generation Zero Trust

Surf Security is delivering the next generation of zero trust security via its Zero Trust Browser.

Verifiable Data Sharing for Digital Twins

Trusted Twin is a digital, cloud-based space for secure, reliable and verifiable Digital Twin storing and sharing.

Here are some of our past investments and exits:

Acquired by Ping Identity (Nasdaq: PING)

Singular Key enables continuously adaptive identity workflows that helps companies eliminate the burden and cost of managing integrations with multiple vendors in order to deliver onboarding and authentication journeys. Singular Key was Kemp Au Venture’s first investment and was acquired by Ping Identity in September of 2021.

Acquired by Thoma Bravo (2018) & TPG (2021)

Centrify is a leader in privileged access management. Tom and Adam were co-founders of Centrify, raising over $90m from top tier VCs (Accel, Index, Mayfield and JSV) and strategics (Samsung, Fortinet, Docomo Capital). Centrify reached over $100m in revenue under Tom’s and Adam’s leadership with 1000s of enterprise customers, including 60% of Fortune 50. Adam and Tom were investors in both the VC- and PE-funded iterations of Centrify. Centrify was first acquired by PE-firm Thoma Bravo in 2018 and then by PE-firm TPG in 2021.

Acquired by CyberArk (Nasdaq: CYBR)

A spin out of Centrify, Idaptive delivers Next-Gen Access, protecting organizations from data breaches through a Zero Trust approach. Idaptive secures access to applications and endpoints by verifying every user, validating their devices, and intelligently limiting their access. Tom and Adam were investors in the PE-owned Idaptive that was acquired by CyberArk in 2020.

Acquired by Alpine Holdings (Nasdaq: ALPP)

Vayu Aircraft was founded to create an entirely new category of drone: a fully autonomous vertical takeoff aircraft that is affordable, easy to use, carries a significant payload, and travels long distances. Vayu was acquired in 2021 by Nasdaq traded Alpine Holdings.

Acquired by Citrix Systems (Nasdaq: CTXS)

Zenprise provided enterprise mobility management (EMM) aka Mobile Device Management (MDM) and was rebranded Citrix XenMobile.

IPO (Nasdaq: NTIQ) and subsequent acquisitions by Attachmate and then MicroFocus (Lon: MCRO)

NetIQ was a startup systems management company that went public in 1999 (Nasdaq:NTIQ), scaled to over $250m in revenue and subsequently went private in 2007 through its acquisition by Attachmate, and then was sold as part of Attachmate to MicroFocus. 

Acquired by ADT (Nasdaq: ADT)

Proximex was a leader in event and information management for both physical and logical security markets. 

Acquired by Computer Associates (NYSE: CA)

Netreon provided network storage management.