Katelin Holloway

Founding partner at 776

Katelin Holloway is a founding partner at 776, the early-stage venture firm started with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. In an April 2024 interview with UNLEASH, she said that she, Ohanian and Lissie Garvin founded the firm in 2020 after splitting from Initialized Capital, and that its name honors the year of the first Olympic Games. She described 776 as an early-stage generalist fund with an emphasis on people and product, and on empathy and people-first companies.^[1]

Her author profile at TechCrunch describes more than 20 years of operating experience, including at Pixar and Reddit, and says she invests in startups in health, space, sustainability, creativity and other areas aimed at expanding human potential and resilience. A speaker bio for HumanX 2026 adds that she oversees firm and portfolio operations and leads investor relations in addition to investing, and that her expertise spans human resources, operations and culture building.^[3][4]

The firm's size and approach

TechCrunch's February 2022 report on 776 gives the clearest published picture of the firm's scale at that point. The first fund closed at $150 million about a year earlier; the second closed at $500 million across two vehicles, $300 million for the earliest-stage startups and $200 million for growth-stage companies, bringing assets under management to $750 million. The portfolio then included more than 38 companies that had raised over $800 million in follow-on capital, and Ohanian said the firm almost always led the rounds it joined. The article's caption lists Holloway as a founding partner and Garvin as founding chief of staff.^[2]

The same article describes the firm's working style: deal flow arrives largely by email and text and is tracked in an internal system called Cerebro, which lets founders request introductions to people in 776's network, and the firm gives its founders monthly accountability reviews. Ohanian said 776 follows the founders it meets rather than a fixed sector focus. These figures date from 2022 and the report predates later fundraising, so they should not be read as the firm's current size.^[2]

Pixar, Klout and Reddit

Holloway's operating career was in people and culture. The UNLEASH interview says she held senior human-resources roles at Klout and Pixar and was vice president of people and culture at Reddit. A promotional page for a live question-and-answer session with her adds that she worked her way up through Pixar's creative department, and that at Reddit she grew headcount from about 75 to nearly 750 and led a cultural turnaround that earned the company placements on Top 20 lists.^[1][5]

From HR leader to investor

In the UNLEASH interview she called herself an accidental investor. Early in her HR career she needed tools for basic people-operations work and asked friends to build them; their referrals gradually built a network of HR-technology founders. She advised several of those companies and took equity in some, including Lattice. As exits turned that equity into cash, she reinvested in the sector, built an angel portfolio, and expanded into women's health and climate technology.^[1]

She became an institutional investor in late 2019 after advising Initialized Capital, and then moved with Ohanian to found 776 the following year. Her argument, as summarized on the Live AMA page, is that if venture investors believe team matters most, more of them should have HR backgrounds.^[1][5]

What she looks for in founders

Holloway told UNLEASH that standout startups solve an existing problem elegantly, and that founders with first-hand operating experience of the problem are a strong signal. She wants to see clear knowledge of the pain and a solution that could reach millions of people. She highlighted two HR-technology investments, Covey, an AI and machine-learning recruiting platform, and Intro, a consumer app connecting experts with learners.^[1]

On the buying side, she advised HR leaders to forecast headcount, geographic expansion and fundraising plans before buying software, and to reassess tools every few years as the business changes. She pointed to headless HR systems that separate back-end processes from the interface, so-called total workforce intelligence for managing contingent labor, and AI that automates routine tasks and deepens employee insights as areas to watch.^[1]

Public appearances and advice

The Live AMA page lists the topics she was prepared to discuss: the move from people leader to investor, what venture investors look for in founding teams, scaling culture through hypergrowth, earning a strategy seat for the people function, caregiving and parental inclusion, and advice to her younger operator self. In the UNLEASH interview, her own advice to her younger self was to follow curiosity rather than money, since interest-driven choices brought more success.^[1][5]

HumanX lists her as a 2026 speaker at its San Francisco conference, April 6 to 9, 2026, on a panel titled Are AI Startups Building Real Value or Just Chasing Hype?^[4]

Why she matters

Holloway is one of a small number of investors who came to venture from running people and culture rather than from finance or engineering. That background shapes what she says she backs: founders who have lived the problem, teams built around empathy, and teams that put people first. Her path from Pixar and Reddit to a $750 million firm, as of 2022, also makes her a visible example of the HR-to-investor route she advocates.^[1][2][5]

On The Executive List

Katelin Holloway is ranked No. 95 on The Executive List (October 2026) in the Chief Human Resources Officers discipline. The list row shows her at Initialized Capital; she left with Alexis Ohanian in 2020 and is a founding partner at 776. The ranking reflects The Executive Review's own editorial Trending Score; it is not an outside award, and placement on the list is never sold. View the October 2026 edition.