TQ Ventures
Early-stage venture firm and the first warm inbound investor conversation for Agent Machines. Founded in 2018 by Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks, based in New York City and San Francisco, managing roughly $2B in assets and investing out of its fourth fund. Source: email intro from Will Varnum, 2026-06-12
Early-stage venture firm and the first warm inbound investor conversation for Agent Machines. Founded in 2018 by Schuster Tanger and Andrew Marks, based in New York City and San Francisco, managing roughly $2B in assets and investing out of its fourth fund. Source: tq.vc/about, tq.vc/team, 2026-06-12; LinkedIn /company/tq-ventures, 2026-06-12
The inbound (2026-06-12)
Will Varnum (Princeton physics student, TQ summer analyst) connected Kevin and made two intros:
- Schuster Tanger (co-founding partner) with Agent Machines co-founders Kevin and Aryan — an investor call.
- Lindsay Amos (TQ head of communications, former head of communications at Y Combinator for ~8 years) with Kevin — a comms/positioning call.
Source: email intro from Will Varnum, 2026-06-12
Relevance to Kevin
First live, warm investor inbound for Agent Machines, and it arrived through a Princeton connection (Will Varnum), which is a stronger starting point than the cold HumanX leads in Agent Machines — Fundraising Prep (Private). TQ is an established early-stage firm with real AUM, and the second intro (Lindsay Amos, ex-YC comms) is a bonus: exactly the narrative help an early-stage founder wants while shaping the story.
A negotiated TQ round is also Kevin's "more fair" alternative to YC's flat, non-negotiable $125k-for-7% post-money SAFE — priced to Agent Machines' actual leverage rather than a fixed formula. See YC Standard Deal vs Negotiated Round. Source: User, 2026-06-13
Timeline
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2026-07-01 | Project graph refresh checked this page against Kevin's live GitHub inventory and PortfolioMon scrape. No direct repo/card match was promoted here, so the page remains a context or umbrella project page. Source: raw/github/kevin-repos-2026-07-01.json; raw/sites/kevinliu-biz-2026-07-01/portfolio-projects.json
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2026-06-12 | Kevin spoke with Will Varnum and co-founding partner Andrew Marks (Friday); both encouraged him to advance the conversation with the firm. Source: User, 2026-06-14
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2026-06-12 | Warm inbound: Will Varnum intro'd Kevin/Aryan to Schuster Tanger (partner call) and Kevin to Lindsay Amos (comms call). Replies drafted to schedule both. Source: email intro from Will Varnum, 2026-06-12
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2026-06-13 | Framed by Kevin as the "more fair" alternative to YC's flat 7% post-money SAFE — a negotiated round priced to leverage. See YC Standard Deal vs Negotiated Round. Source: User, 2026-06-13