Kevin Hartz Launches A* Capital: From Eventbrite and Xoom to Venture Investing
Kevin Hartz Launches A* Capital: From Eventbrite and Xoom to Venture Investing
Kevin Hartz, the co-founder of Eventbrite and former CEO of the cross-border payments company Xoom, has started his own venture capital firm called A* Capital. His path from building payment and ticketing platforms to institutional investing spans three decades of technology shifts — from the early internet through the mobile era to today's digital economy.
SEC filings show that Hartz spent eleven years at Founders Fund, a well-known venture capital firm, from October 2005 to September 2016, working as both a partner and entrepreneur in residence. That role let him learn how institutional venture capital works while keeping the option open to start something new. His current venture, A* Capital, operates through entities including A-STAR CAPITAL FUND II GP, LLC.
From Research to Payments
Hartz took an unusual path into technology. After graduating from Miramonte High School in Orinda, California in 1988, he studied at the University of Oxford and completed his degree in 1993. His first job was as a research assistant at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, which focuses on vision science.
That research background gave way to finance. At Xoom, which Hartz co-founded and led as CEO, he built a platform for sending money across borders — a market that has since grown crowded with competitors like Remitly and Wise. But before Xoom took off, Hartz made a prescient early investment in a company called Fieldlink, which eventually became PayPal. That bet placed him near the center of the emerging digital payments world.
Building Eventbrite into a Public Company
Hartz co-founded Eventbrite alongside his wife Julia, who became CEO while Kevin took the chairman role. The platform solved a real problem: helping people discover and buy tickets to events, whether small local concerts or large conferences.
Eventbrite went public on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker EB, making it one of the few consumer tech platforms with a public listing. When COVID-19 shut down live events, the company adapted by building tools for virtual and hybrid events. SEC filings show Hartz remains on Eventbrite's board as chairman.
The Venture Capital Years
Hartz's time at Founders Fund, from 2005 to 2016, coincided with a pivotal moment in tech history. The firm is known for making big, contrarian bets, and its portfolio included companies like Facebook, SpaceX, and Palantir — investments that spanned consumer apps, enterprise software, and deep technology. Working there taught Hartz how institutional investors evaluate early-stage companies and manage large funds.
The structure of his role was telling: as "entrepreneur in residence," he could watch how deals get done without being locked into a pure investor's desk job. It gave him time to think about what he wanted to build next.
A* Capital Takes Shape
A* Capital is Hartz's independent venture capital platform. The name draws from mathematics, where an asterisk (*) often signifies an optimal or best solution — a nod to analytical rigor. The firm has multiple fund vehicles and operates as a traditional venture capital partnership, raising money from investors and deploying it into early-stage companies.
The specific investments and strategy haven't been fully disclosed publicly, but the timing and structure suggest Hartz is betting on the operational experience he gained building payments, events, and platform companies.
Why This Pattern Matters
The broader context here points to a real shift in venture capital. Over the past decade, former founders have increasingly started their own investment firms instead of just joining Sand Hill Road partnerships. These operator-led funds have a key advantage: the founders bring hands-on experience and networks built while running real companies.
Hartz's background spans categories — payments, events, digital infrastructure — that remain essential across different waves of technology adoption. Having lived through the dot-com era, the mobile revolution, and the rise of cloud computing, he has seen similar patterns repeat. Cross-border payments, for instance, looked like a solved problem, then became relevant again as smartphone adoption changed how people send money.
In this author's view, A* Capital is another marker of how venture capital is evolving. Successful operators like Hartz are less interested in traditional partnerships and more interested in deploying capital alongside their own judgment and networks. For those tracking venture capital trends, A* Capital represents the kind of specialized, founder-led fund that has become increasingly common in the industry.
For companies seeking capital and mentorship, having a founder-investor on the other side of the table who has built and scaled platforms makes a difference. It means advice that comes from experience, not theory — and networks that can actually help.
