DFS Lab

General contacts
Investor type

VC

Founded

-

AUM

-

Location

Seattle, Washington, United States

Investment Ticket

$0-1 m

Investment Stage

Pre-seed Seed

Region of investment

Asia Africa North America
Investor profile last updated: 21 August, 2026

Profile

DFS Lab is a fintech incubator based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded by Jake Kendall, the firm focuses on empowering communities through mentorship and strategic advice to early-stage startups. The team leverages frontier-market research to guide investments, favoring augmentation of informal agent-based networks over pure-play digital models.

DFS Lab invests primarily in fintech, e-commerce, logistics, food and agriculture, and marketplaces. They typically invest in pre-seed and seed stages, with an average check size ranging from $50,000 to $1 million. The firm focuses on investments in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

Notable investments by DFS Lab include projects like the Merchant Payments Observatory in Ethiopia and Nigeria, and MSE Onboarding for Online Selling in Southeast Asia. These initiatives highlight their commitment to understanding and supporting digital payment adoption and digital selling platforms in emerging markets.

Industry

Logistics Fintech E-commerce/Marketplace Agriculture

Contacts

Name
Title
Email
Social Networks
avatar
Stephen Deng General Partner
General Partner
s•••@•••
avatar
Jake Kendall General Partner
General Partner
j•••@•••
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Investment-team contacts for DFS Lab — including verified work emails and LinkedIn profiles — are available to Private Equity List subscribers.
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FAQs about DFS Lab

DFS Lab is a venture capital firm. It backs companies at Pre-seed and Seed, writing tickets of $0-1 m.
DFS Lab is located in Seattle, Washington, United States.
DFS Lab was founded in .
DFS Lab invests in companies and startups in Logistics, Fintech, E-commerce/Marketplace, Agriculture.
DFS Lab invests in companies and startups in Asia, Africa, North America.
DFS Lab invests in companies and startups at Pre-seed, Seed.
DFS Lab usually invests $0-1 m on average.
DFS Lab can be reached through its website dfslab.net and its LinkedIn page. Its general enquiries address is [email protected]. Cold-mailing a general inbox rarely reaches a partner, so Private Equity List also lists the investment-team contacts for DFS Lab — names, roles, verified work emails and LinkedIn profiles — available on a Pro plan from $129/month (see pricing). Contacts are sourced from the firm's website and LinkedIn and re-verified on a rolling cycle. Spot a stale contact, or none at all? Report it — we re-run that firm within 48h and get back to you.
Yes. Every field on this page — profile, funds, investment criteria, portfolio and investment-team contacts — is available programmatically through the Private Equity List REST API and MCP server, so AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT can query DFS Lab directly instead of scraping this page. One subscription covers both the web app and machine access — see API & MCP.
Private Equity List re-verifies investor profiles on a rolling cycle, pulling from the firm's own website and LinkedIn rather than a one-off import. This profile was last updated on 21 August, 2026. Something out of date here? Report it — we re-run that firm within 48h and get back to you.