Jaclyn Freeman Hester is a Partner at Foundry. She joined in 2016 with a passion for supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and investors. Jaclyn leads direct investments in early-stage companies, often collaborating with Foundry’s partner funds. She loves working closely with founders to solve hard problems and think about the human elements of business. She invests across B2B and consumer companies that exhibit strong end-user empathy and use technology to empower individuals, unlock potential, and improve experiences.

Jaclyn helped launch Foundry’s partner fund strategy, building the portfolio to nearly 50 managers. Bringing her unique GP + LP perspective, Jaclyn has become a go-to sounding board for emerging VCs.

Jaclyn first fell in love with entrepreneurship while earning her JD/MBA at CU Boulder (Go Buffs!). There, she served as Executive Director of Startup Colorado, where she got to know Foundry and the incredible Boulder/Denver startup community the firm helped catalyze. In her brief stint as a practicing attorney, Jaclyn advised clients in M&A transactions and early-stage financings. She also witnessed the founder journey first-hand, working closely with her husband and his family as they built a B2B SaaS company, FareHarbor (acquired by BKNG).

Jaclyn loves the Boulder lifestyle, but her heart will always be on the East Coast, having grown up a New England “beach kid.” She is the proud mother of three humans and three dogs and is a blue-groomer-on-a-sunny-day skier and 9-hole golfer. In her glimpses of free time, you can find Jaclyn enjoying live music, especially at Red Rocks and in Telluride, two of the most magical places in the world.