These 2 Las Vegas businesswomen are helping local startups

Kristin Tomasik and Vicki Zhou, both born and raised in Las Vegas, are leading the way as general partners of venture capital fund FundNV’s second round of investments. The fund is a partner of StartupNV, which provides resources to entrepreneurs including incubator and accelerator programs.

“FundNV is a pre-seed fund that invests in startups that are located or have a presence or focused on Nevada,” said Zhou, a Clark High School graduate. “We focus on companies, many of which are based or have a strong presence in Las Vegas or northern Nevada.”

Second round for FundNV

Founded by Jeff Saling, the first round of investments for FundNV ran from 2020 to 2023 with a $1 million fund, providing $50,000 investments.

This year, with Zhou and Tomasik joining the team as partners, they are doubling the fund to $2 million, giving $100,000 to 20 pre-seed startups over 32 to 48 months.

The fund generates revenue through their limited partners or special purpose vehicles, which are one-off investments into one company. Additionally, all investments will be matched one-to-one by the Nevada State Small Business Credit Initiative.

“We have our LPs, the people that invest in the fund, many of them are follow on investors,” said Tomasik, who was also a UNLV graduate. “People have invested in the past, and they see that there’s good traction, and also early indication of good returns from fund one.”

During the last round of funding, FundNV gave investments to SurgiStream, a company that helps streamline surgery scheduling, and Flawless AI which dubs over movies in different languages for companies such as Netflix.

As the Las Vegas startup ecosystem grows, Tomasik and Zhou have been there since the start.

Early startup ecosystem

As a UNLV computer science graduate and Las Vegas native, Tomasik attested that the tech industry in Las Vegas was sparse upon graduation in 2009. After working for defense contractors, she joined her first startup launch team for a cybersecurity company in 2013, funded by Tony Hsieh’s Vegas Tech Fund.

“I joined as employee number one and kind of fell in love with startups,” said Tomasik. “The money [from Vegas Tech Fund] was being invested in downtown Las Vegas at that time.”

After that company was acquired, she worked for “a number of other companies,” but most notably WiseBanyan, a financial technology company that offered free financial advising, where Zhou was a founder

Zhou, alongside being a Clark High School and Johns Hopkins University graduate, was founder and COO of WiseBanyan, and a lover of startups. When WiseBanyan moved their headquarters to Las Vegas in 2014, she continued to be in the startup space.

In 2019, WiseBanyan was acquired by Axos, which has headquarters in Las Vegas at the Gramercy.

“I’ve helped companies that are like [Y Combinator venture capital firm]-backed companies,” said Zhou. “I’ve helped a variety of startups that are remote or across the country, and have built out more of their company, their team and their product.”

After Vegas Tech Fund “dried up” the momentum for startups slowed, according to Tomasik. Tomasik said she was “very fortunate” to be in the job market during the startup boom, but if not, she would have had to leave the place she always called home.

“Being born and raised here, and my family and friends here, I was glad that someone had a belief that Vegas could be more than just a service industries city,” said Tomasik.

For Zhou, she has noticed a gaining interest in companies wanting to call Las Vegas a home like her.

“I talked to a founder of a Y Combinator-backed fintech company, and he had written a very long post about why he thinks Las Vegas should be the remote capital of the world,” said Zhou.

Contact Emerson Drewes at edrewes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @EmersonDrewes on X.