Initialized Capital

21 statements across 13 episodes · 8 bullish · 1 bearish · 9 people on the record · first statement Dec 12, 2016 by Alexis Ohanian · said 98 times in 33 episodes since 2016 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (63), Alexis Ohanian (10), Jason Lemkin (5), Garry Tan (5), Ted Blosser (3), Jon Dishotsky (2), Beezer Clarkson (2), Semil Shah (1)

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2024 13 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2023 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
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2021 1 mention in 1 episode
2020 12 mentions in 1 episode
2019 24 mentions in 7 episodes 3 per episode
2018 6 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2017 12 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
2016 21 mentions in 5 episodes 4 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Initialized Capital, oldest first

Dec 12, 2016 positive
Disclosure
Ohanian: Initialized Capital invested in Coinbase's seed funding round
“There's a great Gary Tan story about Coinbase where we had done their seed round”
Alexis Ohanian Dec 12, 2016 ▶ 18:05 20VC: Reddit's Alexis Ohanian on How It All Started With Paul Graham @ YC, The Biggest Surprises About Making The Move Into VC & Why Alexis Believes All The Best Investors Have Operating Experience
Dec 12, 2016 bullish
Disclosure
Ohanian: Initialized invested in WorkRamp for its unsexy, mandatory software
“The most recently publicly announced one would have been WorkRamp. And the reason why is because it's so unsexy and so mandatory. Basically, it's the easiest way to train and develop an employee.”
Alexis Ohanian Dec 12, 2016 ▶ 24:23 20VC: Reddit's Alexis Ohanian on How It All Started With Paul Graham @ YC, The Biggest Surprises About Making The Move Into VC & Why Alexis Believes All The Best Investors Have Operating Experience
Dec 12, 2016
Disclosure
Ohanian: Initialized Capital raised $7 million for its first fund
“And so Gary and Harge and I sat down and said, okay, let's start a fund. Let's raise a little bit of money. We raised about seven.”
Alexis Ohanian Dec 12, 2016 ▶ 4:34 20VC: Reddit's Alexis Ohanian on How It All Started With Paul Graham @ YC, The Biggest Surprises About Making The Move Into VC & Why Alexis Believes All The Best Investors Have Operating Experience
Dec 14, 2016 neutral
Prediction Partly held up
Initialized targets 5% to 10% seed ownership to accommodate co-investors
“Between five, if we can target five to 10% ownership initially, that's still enough to bring in the SV Angels or the Fuel Capitals or other great investors that we especially like to work with.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 20:00 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016 neutral
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Initialized Capital will remain strictly focused on the 0-20 employee stage
“Yeah, I think we should be disciplined around, well, We really should focus on the zero to 20 employee sort of stage. I think there are tons and tons of people out there who are fantastically great scaling operator, like series A and later investors. But for u…”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 24:14 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016 neutral
Prediction Held up
Initialized Capital targets 20 investments per year to maintain founder support
“For us, the right trade-off is we think that we can work with about 20 companies per year and really spend quite a lot of time with them bi-weekly to monthly meetings all the way through until they're Series A.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 18:10 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Dec 14, 2016 neutral
Disclosure
Initialized is waiting for the next computing platform before big bets
“And so, you know, we are frankly are waiting for that platform and it's anyone's guess when that will be.”
Garry Tan Dec 14, 2016 ▶ 11:16 20VC: Garry Tan on The Biggest Takeaways From Advising 700 Companies @ Y Combinator & Why Now Is The Golden Age For The Early Stage?
Jan 27, 2017 positive
Disclosure
WorkRamp chose Initialized to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software
“We went to them because not because they were hardcore enterprise seed investors, but really because they understood consumer markets extremely well. And we wanted to apply those same growth strategies to the enterprise market”
Ted Blosser Jan 27, 2017 ▶ 9:04 20VC: Why You Should Build Your Investor Team Like A Sports Team & How To Leverage The Abilities Of Your Investors Effectively with Ted Blosser, Founder & CEO @ WorkRamp
Aug 30, 2017 neutral
Disclosure
Cohen: Initialized Capital is not yet actively investing in voice startups
“I'm not going to come out here and say that we invest in voice companies. We're really not sure yet, but it is a really interesting new platform.”
Alina Cohen Aug 30, 2017 ▶ 17:59 20VC: Why AI Is More Artificial Than Intelligent, Why Engineering-centric Founders Are Able To Pivot Best & Why Startups Are Like Games with Alina Cohen, General Partner @ Initialized Capital
Apr 1, 2019
Insight
Tan: Operational VC coaching adds more value at pre-seed than post-Series A
“Post series A, series B, and later in particular, it really is about care and feeding the organization. So as a company, you've already chosen your direction. In fact, often you've chosen your go-to-market. And so now it's about taking that go-to-market and sc…”
Garry Tan Apr 1, 2019 ▶ 9:23 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
Apr 1, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Tan: Founders with prior Initialized relationships perform three times better
“We actually ran the numbers recently and people who we worked very closely with previously, their startups outcomes are actually looking about three times better. Then the folks that we didn't have sort of that multi-year background and sort of process with.”
Garry Tan Apr 1, 2019 ▶ 13:32 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
Apr 1, 2019 neutral
Disclosure
Initialized Capital requires two strong yeses or a GP silver bullet
“At initialized, all the GPs get silver bullets, you know, not unlimited ones, but you know, that's sort of the release valve. And then up the middle, we basically require two strong yes in that process.”
Garry Tan Apr 1, 2019 ▶ 23:50 20VC: Initialized's Garry Tan on The Most Important Thing A Seed Investor Can Do For Founders, How Ownership Requirements Change With Evolution of Funds & Why There Is Not Too Much Capital Chasing Too Few Deals
May 17, 2019 positive
Opinion
Dishotsky: Initialized Capital deserves credit for calling out startup hustle porn culture
“And I actually have to give kudos to the initialized guys for taking down the notion of sort of hustle porn, as I would say. There's this concept in the valley that like you should just grind to the limits of your existence and think about yourself secondarily…”
Jon Dishotsky May 17, 2019 ▶ 17:55 20VC: How To Build True Human Relationships with VC Pre-Investment, Why Valuation Is Not The Only Term and When To Take Lower Offers & How To Approach Mental Health As A Founder with Jon Dishotsky, Founder & CEO @ Starcity
Nov 4, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Top Tier Capital Partners' portfolio includes Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures
“Included in their stellar fund portfolio is the likes of Index, Initialize, True Ventures, Andreessen, and some of my favorites in Ed and Elliot at Boldstart, just to name a”
Harry Stebbings Nov 4, 2019 ▶ 0:48 20VC: Inside The Mind of A Leading LP: How LPs Evaluate New Fund Managers on Everything from First Meeting to Portfolio Construction To Fees and Carry with Lisa Edgar, Managing Director @ Top Tier Capital Partners
Nov 19, 2020
Disclosure
Ohanian: Seven Seven Six launched with team from Initialized Capital
“And then yes, very recently went out and brought a few of the folks over from initialized to launch a new firm, a seven, seven, six.”
Alexis Ohanian Nov 19, 2020 ▶ 4:33 20VC: Alexis Ohanian on Why Now Was The Right Time To Start Seven Seven Six, The 2 Very Distinct Types of Deals In Venture & The Unbundling of Social in 2021
Nov 19, 2020
Disclosure
Ohanian: Ohanian and Gary Tan hold stakes in each other's funds
“I'm a, I like, I'm a personal investor in the new, a reconstituted, initialized Gary's going to be or is an investor in seven, seven, six”
Alexis Ohanian Nov 19, 2020 ▶ 7:50 20VC: Alexis Ohanian on Why Now Was The Right Time To Start Seven Seven Six, The 2 Very Distinct Types of Deals In Venture & The Unbundling of Social in 2021
Oct 18, 2023
Disclosure
Clarkson: I passed on Initialized Capital's first fund, which returned $390M
“So I passed on the initialized fund one because we had just launched, yes, I know. It was bad. But- Do you know, it made three hundred and ninety million.”
Beezer Clarkson Oct 18, 2023 ▶ 51:32 Beezer Clarkson: Are LPs Open for Business & Why Do LP Incentive Mechanisms Need to Change? | E1073 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Initialized Capital's early funds achieved up to 100x returns
“Initialize ones like 50 X tiny fund, maybe a hundred X and initialize to I bet is 10 X net for a big fund.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 4, 2024 ▶ 25:04 Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 12, 2024
Disclosure
Rabois: Lost Rippling seed to Gary Tan over $10M valuation gap
“Rickling came in, Parker came in and we gave a term sheet. It was, you know, obviously controversial at the time, for the seed, and Gary Tan, initialized, also gave a term sheet. And at the time, there was about a ten million dollar gap. I probably offered fiv…”
Keith Rabois Jan 12, 2024 ▶ 11:05 Keith Rabois on Rejoining Khosla Ventures | E1102 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 7, 2024 negative
What-if
Alexis Ohanian: Initialized could have returned Fund I by selling Zenefits
“I should have sold, we got, we could have returned the fund once over in whenever the fidelity markdown was, like literally putting an SPV together to sell Zenefits and then the markdown, the fidelity markdown happened and it killed the SPV. That was one, that…”
Alexis Ohanian Aug 7, 2024 ▶ 1:13:53 Alexis Ohanian: The Full P&L Breakdown of the World's Most Valuable Women's Sports Team | E1187 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 10, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Jul 2030
Lemkin: Initialized Capital's Fund II will achieve a 10x return
“Their fund two is going to be a 10 X fund, I think with flock safety rippling and others.”
Jason Lemkin Jul 10, 2025 ▶ 11:29 Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Acquired by Meta | Microsoft Layoff 9000 People | OpenAI's Bombshell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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