The 35-year-old creator of Twitch has already launched and sold one startup for $1 billion. And he just raised $65 million from top VC firms, like Andreessen Horowitz, to do it again
Justin Kan was unable to sell Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most powerful venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, on investing millions into his nutty startup Justin.tv more than a decade ago.
"We couldn't get them to invest in Twitch," Kan said, referring to the live-streaming platform's spinoff that's focused on video gaming. "Actually, I don't think I ever got a meeting."
But now, years later, the firm is leading a new $65 million round of financing for Kan's new startup, Atrium. The legal technology startup builds software tools for an in-house law firm whose attorneys specialize in helping startups do the things all successful startups do: raise funding, issue stock options, and create commercial contracts.
Someday, the startup could bundle these software tools, which use
Chen met Kan about 10 years ago, when the young entrepreneur hatched an idea for a live-video platform that streamed his life 24/7. He strapped a camera to his baseball cap and wore a backpack filled with cellular data cards that carried whatever he saw to the web.
"The idea was creative, but so off the wall," Chen told Business Insider. (Even Kan would later call the startup a "terrible idea.")
Justin.tv pivoted and pivoted again, transforming into the
In 2017, Chen joined nearly 100 institutional and angel investors in providing $10.5 million in Series A funding to Atrium. He must have been impressed, because he convinced Andreessen Horowitz to put in more than half of the $65 million round total for the Series B.
In the last year alone, Atrium has offered its legal services to over 250 startups, who have raised a total of $500 million in funding. Its client roster includes digital pharmacy startup Alto, scooter-sharing firm Bird, and fraud detection software-maker Sift Science.