Suzanne Kim has stepped down as managing director of investor relations at fundraising powerhouse Hellman & Friedman to join a crypto-focused venture capital firm, Haun Ventures, founded in 2021.
“I’ve learned from the best at Hellman & Friedman on the strategic imperative of building long-term partnerships centered on respect, transparency and alignment,” wrote Kim on a Linkedin post announcing her new job. At Hellman & Friedman Kim developed relationships with limited partners as part of a roughly seven-person investor relations team, led by Partner and Head of IR Susanna Daniels.
New Gig: Kim joins a Menlo Park-based venture capital firm investing in cryptocurrency and blockchain companies through two pools of capital—one a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion acceleration fund. Founder and CEO Katie Haun, previously a general partner leading crypto deals at Andreessen Horowitz, leads an investment team of three and an operating team of eight, according to its team page.
The Big Picture: IR professionals with close ties to limited partners have become highly sought-after as fund managers raise larger and larger funds and launch new fund families.
Track Record: Kim spent nearly 11 years at San Francisco-based buyout firm Hellman & Friedman, which closed its tenth flagship fund at $24.4 billion in 2021. Earlier in her career she worked as a vice president focused on fundraising and IR at TPG Capital and before that as an analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co. We were unable to reach Kim for comment for this article by press-time. Executives at Hellman & Friedman declined to comment on any plans to replace Kim.