Weāre thrilled to announce boldstart vi + opportunities iii, $367M to continue backing developer first, crypto infra, and SaaS founders from day one to scale. boldstart vi is $192,168,111 while opportunities iii is $175M. Being a day one investor takes time and patience, and we are š„ up to have the flexibility to not only write first checks as little as $250K, but to also continue backing our founders with investments up to $30M as they scale. šš¼ to our founders, LPs, co-investors and friends as we would not be here without your partnership.
This is a short post as not much has changed.Ā Bigger is not better. Despite the supersizing of seed funds, staying disciplined on our core fund size and ratio of investable $ per partner will enable us to continue to support the best technical founders from day one and not stray from our mission.Ā We purposely kept fund vi at $192,168,111, approximately a 20% increase from fund v, while adding more firepower to the team (see below). opportunities iii is $175M and more than double opportunities ii as we have more fast growing portfolio companies to support.
With boldstart vi, we will continue to:
- š¤ collaborate with technical founders well before writing their first line of code or making their first hires
- šø lead pre-product rounds at company formation
- š help accelerate their path to product market fit.
- āļø strive to be a founderās first call, text, whatsapp, telegram from day one to exit
- š” partner with underdog founders who can see around corners and create new categories ā building the nextĀ Snyk,Ā Blockdaemon,Ā BigID,Ā Kustomer,Ā SuperhumanĀ and more.
Promotions to Partner, growing the team
Weāre š„ up to announce that we have promotedĀ Shomik GhoshĀ from Principal to Partner andĀ Ellen ChisaĀ from Founder-in-Residence to Partner. Eliot and I couldnāt be more excited to expand our partnership from 2 to 4 as both Ellen and Shomik not only embody what it means to truly serve founders 24/7 but have also led some amazing investments in the latest funds.
Since our last fund announcement, weāve also addedĀ Ab GuptaĀ from portfolio company Kustomer (sold to Meta) as an Operating Partner andĀ Ernest AddisonĀ as an Associate.Ā Natalie Ledbetter, our Head of People/Operating Partner, continues to make a huge impact on the portfolio helping founders build their hiring and people function. Day one investing is a team sport, and weāre excited to continue expanding our team to help founders set the right foundation from day one.
+Crypto Infra
Our roots as a firm come from investing in highly technical teams building all kinds of infrastructure including decentralized. We made our first crypto infrastructure investment over 8 years ago in 2014 inĀ Changetip, payment rails to easily send Bitcoin on a peer to peer basis. We were way too early but learned a ton through that process.
This led us to starting theĀ worldās first enterprise-focused blockchain labĀ in 2017 with IBM Hyperledger and Comcast as our partners and Rob Bailey as co-founder. Through MState (portfolio here), and in collaboration with boldstart III, we led day one investments inĀ BlockdaemonĀ and serve on the board of directors and also participated in the founding seed rounds ofĀ FireblocksĀ andĀ AmberdataĀ amongst others. Since Fund IV in 2018, weāve also had a carveout to allow us to invest in tokens.
Over the last 18 months, weāve continued to back existing portfolio companies likeĀ Blockdaemon, a leading node infra provider, as it scaled to a $3.25B valuation,Ā UpstreamĀ (no-code DAO in a box), andĀ AmberdataĀ (digital asset data infrastructure). Weāve also made new announced investments inĀ StakewiseĀ (liquid staking protocol with institutional focus) and unannounced ones in defi security and crypto treasury management.
Given our day one focus, we go where the founders go, and as of late and despite the turbulent markets, weāve seen an equal number of talented founders building new enterprise infra as well as crypto infra companies. The opportunities are endless, and we look forward to continue partnering with founders building core infrastructure to scale, secure, and invest in digital assets while also making it easier for developers to build new applications.
Fully distributed, NYC, LA, Boston + šš¼ Miami š“
Weāre now fully distributed as Eliot and I both moved to Miami at the beginning of 2022, and the rest of our team is covering key locations like NYC, Boston, and LA. Great developer first companies are built anywhere so we will continue backing founders in Israel, Europe, and the US no matter our locale. As for why Miami, take a look atĀ Edās postĀ from his weekly Whatās š„. Suffice to say, we like catching š early and are super excited to help build and expand the burgeoning enterprise and crypto infrastructure community.
Letās Build šļø
boldstart is open for business, and weāll continue to look for the best and brightest technical founders creating new categories in enterprise and crypto infrastructure. Please reach out if you have an ideaš” and are ready to build šļø!
More on TechCrunch -āboldstart ventures has two new funds to plug into teams with an idea and little elseĀ ā