Christopher Kim

Chris Kim is a scientist-turned-operator-turned-investor who co-founded Union Labs in 2018 alongside Nate Williams (a former entrepreneur-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins). The firm was incubated out of Kleiner Perkins with early support from Google Ventures, and grew from the founders' shared conviction that investors and the companies they back "aren't collaborating closely enough" to ensure startup success — particularly in capital- and engineering-intensive "hard tech." Union Labs positions itself as a hybrid between traditional venture capital and corporate venture capital, leveraging an IoT/industry consortium with backing from telecom, utility, consumer-electronics, and insurance partners.

Before becoming an investor, Kim was a builder. He was co-founder, CTO, and head of product at August Home, the smart-lock company that was acquired by Assa Abloy; there he is noted for prioritizing user privacy and security in connected-hardware products. Earlier in his career he held cybersecurity and consumer e-commerce roles at eBay and Bank of America, and he began his career in management consulting at Monitor Group, working out of Boston, London, and Istanbul.

Kim holds a BA in physics from Williams College and comes from a family of physicists, which informs Union Labs' comfort underwriting science- and engineering-heavy companies. Outside of work he is described as an accomplished free diver and an amateur cyclist. At Union Labs he is the technically deep partner, complementing co-founder Nate Williams' operating and partnership-building focus; the broader team has included Annie Le (operations) and Thomas Lee (formerly of Enphase Energy).

• Invests at pre-seed/seed, frequently as the first institutional investor, writing checks roughly $500K–$2.5M.
• Backs "applied" deep tech — founders using AI, robotics, IoT, autonomy, and advanced hardware to solve hard problems "in the physical world," across climate, manufacturing, health, cybersecurity, insuretech, and industrial automation.
• Hands-on / co-creation model: beyond capital, Union Labs provides operational expertise and will incubate companies itself (early plans called for a mix of ~15 direct investments plus 3–5 incubated companies in its first fund).
• Differentiation is operator credibility in hardware: the founders argue that "educating a SaaS partnership about hard tech is super hard," so they back companies that benefit from investors who have actually built and shipped connected hardware.
• Looks for technical, mission-driven founders from diverse backgrounds applying deep technology to large, tangible real-world markets.