Ben Ling has filed to raise up to $60 million for a new fund called Bling Capital. Bling has long been Ling’s nickname both professionally and among friends.
The early Facebook executive is still a general partner at Khosla Ventures, the firm confirmed this morning. Ling declined to comment.
Ling was Facebook’s director of platform from 2007 to 2008. After stints at YouTube, Google and Badoo, where he was COO, Ling began his career in venture capital at Khosla in 2013.
Ling started out strong, leading a number of deals for the firm in 2013, including rounds for ThirdLove and Zenefits, but has since pulled back substantially, according to data from both Crunchbase and PitchBook. His most recent completed deal on record was a $5.5 million round for Bay Labs in December 2017. He joined the medical technology startup’s board as part of the deal.
Ling, who’s also on the boards of storytelling platform Wattpad, home security startup Canary and mobile commerce app Tapingo, hasn’t served as lead partner on any deals this year.
It’s worth noting that Khosla did participate in Plastiq’s $27 million Series B. No lead partner was disclosed, but because Ling has previously led the firm’s investments in the business expense platform and he serves on its board of directors, it’s likely he led the most recent deal as well.
In March, Khosla joined a growing list of firms targeting billion-dollar-plus funds to keep up with SoftBank’s enormous pool of capital when it filed to raise $1.4 billion across a pair of new VC funds.
