Benjamin Ling

Overview

Benjamin Ling is the founder and general partner of Bling Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments. He has backed 19 'unicorn' companies, including Rippling, Gusto, Webflow, and HoneyBook. Prior to founding Bling Capital, Ling was a general partner at Khosla Ventures, focusing on consumer, internet, mobile, marketplace, SaaS, and consumer health businesses. There, he led investments in companies like Wattpad, Tapingo, GitLab, TrueAccord, and Webflow. Before his venture capital career, Ling held senior operating roles at Google, YouTube, and Facebook. At Google, he served as Senior Director of Search and Local Business Products, overseeing services such as Google Images, Videos, Books, News, and Finance. At YouTube, he was Senior Director of Partnerships and Platform, responsible for music, movies, sports, news, as well as mobile, television, and API partnerships. At Facebook, Ling was the first director of the Facebook platform, overseeing the development of the company's developer ecosystem and leading product, marketing, developer operations, and partner solutions. He played a crucial role in developing Facebook Connect, which helped grow Facebook across the web. Ling holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and both an M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. He is a Department of Defense fellow and a recipient of UC Berkeley's Bechtel Achievement Award, given to the top graduating senior from the College of Engineering.

Investment Focus

• Pre-seed to Series A stage companies
• Focus on consumer tech, internet & mobile, marketplace, data, fintech, SaaS, automation, and frontier tech sectors
• Geographical focus on United States and Canada
• Investment size typically between $500,000 and $3,000,000

Portfolio Companies