We invest at the pre-seed and seed stages. Our check sizes range from $500K-$3M.My time is spent on SaaS and Enterprise, Defense, Critical Technologies, Vertically Integrated Businesses leveraging AI, Healthcare and Education, and Consumer Tech.Bling Capital is an early stage venture fund founded in 2018 by Ben Ling, a former product executive at Google, Facebook, and YouTube. Since inception, Bling Capital has backed over 100 companies that have collectively raised over $2B. Bling Capital offers a unique Product Council of 100+ top executives as resources to its portfolio companies. We are honored to have been featured by TechCrunch as “The VCs that Founders Love the Most” and Ben Ling was ranked every year the Midas Seed List has been published, most recently at #4 and #5 (2022, 2023, 2024).

Building hypersonic (Mach 5) aircraft to radically accelerate air travel.

Saving lives by enabling critical communications for the world’s most important organizations

Draft and review legal contracts 10x faster with AI

Fundamental Ventures is the name I use for my angel investing activities. My angel investing sectors of interest include: Critical technologies, defense, space, climate, and some biotech.Public- Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA). Grow better products.- Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI). Quantum computing.- One Codex (acquired by Invitae, NYSE: NVTA). Microbiome platform.- Notable Labs (NASDAQ: NTBL). Predictive precision medicines for cancer.Private- Stoke Space Technologies. Reusable rockets for micro-satellites.- Prometheus Fuels. Carbon neutral fuels from CO2.- Culture Bio. On-demand bioreactors.- Notable Labs. Transforming the way cancer is treated.- Paperspace. Effortless GPU infrastructure.- Zbiotics. Enhanced probiotics.- Kodif. Low code customer experience flows.- Taelor. Pick, wear, and return mens clothing monthly.- Blue Cargo. Move cargo from marine ports to first warehouses.- Aware Healthcare. New mental health care system.- Sunbound. One-stop relocation platform for older adults (55+).- Forte. Online music lessons with audio quality optimized for music.- Agora. Digital wallet and marketplace for K-12 education.- Noetica. Machine learning for corporate debt documentation.- Sixfold Bio. Drug delivery systems.- Synkrino Bio. Discover and deliver drug targets from immune system of patients.- Saratoga Energy. Carbon nanotubes from CO2.- Industrial Microbes. Cheaper chemicals with lower CO2 emissions.- Mobius Motors. Travel platform for Africa.- Quilt Data. Data versioning portal for AWS.- Standard Cyborg. Build spatially-aware applications.Sold off their claims:- Framed Data (acquired by Square).- Zesty (acquired by Square, Caviar).- Rescue Forensics (acquired by IST Research).More info: https://www.fundamentalventures.com

Google DomainsActed as an emergency room doctor assessing and fixing operational components, setting revenue milestones, and profitably scaling product market fit. * Turned around from -$20M/year to a $40M EBITDA $200M top-line * Set up business to transition from internal IT (Corporate Engineering) to Google Commerce* Generated $500M top-line (so, they say) by the time it was transitioned to SquarespaceAdjacencies* Ran "Enterprise Demo Day" to help YC friends land Google contracts from Google leaders* Helped a publicly-traded company expand their contract from XM to XXM inside Google* After leaving Google Domains, was re-organized 4x in 2 years* Reported to HR multiple times for my "outside work" activities in venture (never found "guilty")Originally joined Google to work under a good friend, who knew I was looking to scale a product to $100M and beyond. Avoided the Product Management ladder so I could focus on business building. After leaving Google Domains in a good spot, bounced around other areas inside Google.

via the acquisition of SlidePayRecruited and managed high-performing team tasked with untangling and stabilizing a moody, monolithic architecture so we could expand the core business internationally.My team designed and launched:* Global payments platform* Platform infrastructure model for hosting APIs with Kubernetes* Data pipeline with Prometheus, Grafana, Kafkta, Hive to improve accuracy of reporting.* Overhaul of authentication services, integrating Auth0 into a new API Gateway auth model.* New versions of electronic signature (eSign) and Documents API powering the core business.

via the acquisition of SlidePayLed and managed strategic partnership with Stripe to power Registered Agent and Incorporation services for Stripe Atlas customers (see more: https://stripe.com/atlas).Created and launched payments business within Rocket Lawyer. Managed partnerships with external vendors and internal stakeholders while driving payments strategy across global organization.

(acquired by Rocket Lawyer)Backed by Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, DCVC, Start Fund. SlidePay started as Cube, a modern point of sale for SMBs. We pivoted to offer integrated banking, underwriting, and marketplace payment capabilities to the enterprise. Our bank-as-a-service solution connected banks' infrastructure with fintech startups so they could build new product experiences. Our technology continues to power $10B+ in payments. I had the pleasure of working alongside my co-founders while recruiting and leading a group of incredibly talented engineers and operators over periods of 100%, and -100%, mom growth.

Side project.One of the first 501c3 non-profit crowdfunding services. We ultimately raised enough money to fund a business building a library in Kenya.I had the opportunity to work alongside co-founders who became some of my best friends. We had no idea what we were getting into but it was the jumping off point for us to use entrepreneurship and technology as a tool for building services that could make a positive difference in the world.Post-mortem:What happened. What started as a conversation between friends over drinks in Washington DC went on to become one of the first 501c3 crowdfunding services. We *hacked* our own website (which was later upgraded by a gracious engineer), sourced our own 'projects', used WePay as our payment processor for "tipping" projects, and created high-quality media content for our backers. Instead of allowing backers to fund multiple projects, we focused on curating one high-quality project at a time. When a project "tipped", we would immediately deploy dollars and backers would receive updates in near real-time of the project's progress.Lessons learned. #1: Tactically, we should have allowed individuals to curate their own projects for "tipping". As it turns out, not everyone is interested in the same projects; however, at the time we were more interested in curating transparency than growth. #2: When non-technical co-founders are building a technical product their ability to iterate is inherently handicapped (for obvious reasons). My favorite story is when I was introduced to Alexis Ohanian via a mutual friend. I asked Alexis if he knew any Y Combinator founders that would dedicate time to building our website. His remark: "No, you should learn to code." This nugget of wisdom is the best advice for anyone looking to build a technology startup. Stop looking for technical co-founders to create your idea. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Learn to code. #3 Localism. We funded a business building a library vs. doing it ourselves.

acquired by JPMorgan Chase.WePay is payments platform just for platform businesses. Backed by Ignition Partners, August Capital, Highland Capital Partners, and Y Combinator.

Deloitte is the worlds largest management consulting firm. Provided payment, fintech, and travel strategy services to Fortune 5000 clients.

The M Club Foundation provides former Terrapin NCAA Division I athletic letterwinners the opportunity to continue to be involved in Maryland Athletics once their eligibility has expired.

Pinto Service is a waste management business started by my grandparents in 1963.I spent my summers doing manual labor at the family business. I started by painting and repairing metal 20 yard garbage containers and then graduated into operating machinery. After I got my drivers license, I would drive into work at 3am to work various garbage and recycling collection routes: I would walk alongside the truck for miles, pick up and toss other people’s trash into the back of the truck, and would drop the trash off at landfills. I was actually never allowed to do “office work” and I think that was by design: Learn how the business works before you start working on the business. This experience taught me a lot about hard work and sacrifice.