By Amir Efrati
Two well-known Silicon Valley Web executives have launched a venture capital firm to finance and advise early-stage technology companies, yet another sign of the growing appetite of investors to place bets on younger startups.
It took former Twitter executive Satya Patel, 38 years old, and longtime former Google and YouTube executive Hunter Walk, 39, just four months to raise a $35 million fund?largely from a university endowment, a foundation, and two other institutional investors.
Their firm, called Homebrew (an homage to a celebrated Silicon Valley computer hobbyist group in the 1970s), won?t just write checks. As former product executives, Patel and Walk say they plan to take an active role in their portfolio companies, helping to shape their products and organizations in what venture capitalists call the ?seed? stage.
?We want to help the next set of entrepreneurs and companies be built,? Walk said, adding that he and Patel ?converged on the fact there?s a small number of seed=stage funds that were started by operators,? meaning former product executives.
The duo says it will focus on startups that help businesses, software developers and individuals to ?drive economic growth? through ?simpler, cheaper and more direct access to technology, information and customers.?
Walk said Homebrew is interested in companies that can help ?CTOs, CIOs and CMOs, and to ?disrupt? industries such as financial services, hospitality and retail, among others. It will target 10 or fewer investments per year, plunking down between $250,000 and $800,000 per bet.
Homebrew joins a growing group of seed-stage capital firms that have formed in recent years, including Baseline Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Harrison Metal Capital, Freestyle Capital and Bowery Capital, some of whom also were started by former product-management leaders like Patel and Walk.
As the valuations given to young startups have risen significantly, veteran venture-capital firms have sought to make investments earlier in the startup life-cycle or risk being left behind.
Homebrew also will have a group of notable advisors who will help its portfolio companies. Among them is Jeff Lawson, chief executive of Twilio, which makes software for Web and app developers.
?While every investor has the capability of adding some value (nobody thinks of themselves as dumb money), the mission of Homebrew is to be ?boutique,? if you will, and really help build companies one?or a few?at a time versus spreading itself thinly,? Lawson said, in an email. ?I think it?s new and different.?
In addition to their operating experience, Patel and Walk also have a substantial history with investments. Patel, who formerly worked at venture firm Battery Ventures, was involved in teams that invested in established startups like OpenTable and Angie?s List, among others. He advises many startups, including the travel site Gogobot.
Walk personally invested or advised companies that include Karma Science, which was acquired by Facebook , and Live Star, which was acquired by Pinterest.
Fortune previously reported on Homebrew closing its fund-raising.
London 2012 shot put London 2012 Track And Field Jordyn Wieber michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.