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Feld: Founders and VCs waste time on performative 'fake' work
“CEOs spend a lot of time having fake CEO days, and I think VCs spend a lot of time having fake VC days. And if you really want to be successful, by the way, that translates to everybody on the leadership team, everywhere throughout a company, don't have fake f…”
Feld: A board's only real decision is whether to support the CEO
“I and my partners at Foundry like to carry around Sort of one decision we have to make at a board level. And we talk about it as the only decision we want to make is whether or not we support the CEO. And if we support her, our job is to work for her.”
Eakman: Foundry Group Will Not Attempt Generational Succession
“Foundries on the record is saying that, you know, we're not going to transfer this through a generational transition.”
Levine: Foundry Group will cap all future funds at $225M
“We knew that that was going to be the number for the rest of our time as investors, because we'd always said in our fundraising process that we were going to raise a series of funds. They were all going to look exactly the same and in terms of dollar size. And…”
Mendelson: Foundry Group's highest returns come from downturn investments
“Some of the best deals we've ever done were with entrepreneurs in a down period where no other VCs would invest in them. We were able to, you know, invest in these great companies because we were the only people out there writing checks, and we had outsized re…”
Levine: Silicon Valley location is not required for top VC deal flow
“No, unequivocally no, and I think, I hope Foundry would serve as a case study that that's not the case.”
Foundry Group will never add junior staff or expand team
“When we started Foundry, a deeply held belief was that we would never grow. It would just be, you know, the initial partners. We'd never add any junior people, and that we would be the ones that were doing all the work with the founders versus, you know, havin…”
Every fund raised by Foundry Group is capped at $225M
“Another corollary to that is that every fund we raised would be the same size. So we've raised multiple funds. Every one of them is two hundred and twenty-five million dollars.”
Clark: Foundry Group Handled Succession Well by Deciding to Wind Down
“Foundry Group have done a really good job. Because they've understood that, actually, we're not going to try and do that. There's a group of people here that want to work together, and when we're done. And that, I really respect that. That, that they haven't t…”
Ryan McIntyre says self-awareness is the most critical trait for board members
“The bigger thing I think we all place a premium on is a high level of self-awareness among ourselves and the entrepreneurs and members of management teams that we work with. And I'd say that sort of self-awareness of, you know, your own role and dynamics in a …”
Mendelson: Foundry Group Will Never Chase Investment Deals on Price
“We're not going to chase deals on price. We're not going to chase deals because of some other term sheet.”
Mendelson: Foundry Group Operates With Four Partners and Zero Associates
“There's four partners and there's no associates.”
Mendelson: Foundry Group Does Not Employ PR or Marketing Staff
“We don't have a PR firm. We don't have a marketing person. Our marketing is every once in a while we lose our brains and put up a music video or write a book.”
Eakman: Engaged LP Model Mirrors Traditional VC Support for Emerging Managers
“Our engaged LP role really, to me, is no different than that of the traditional VC. I think of these newer emerging managers as a small company that maybe we could help in their progress.”
Foundry Group Announces New Investment in Resolute Ventures
“I don't think we've announced this yet, but I'm happy to. We are investing with Resolute Ventures.”
SoftTech VC Doubled Down on Fitbit's $9M Series A Across Two Funds
“After a couple of months of due diligence and reference checks and spending time with the team, they led a nine million dollar Series A that I we participated into, and we actually bought more shares of Fitbit from our other fund, Fund Three, which we had rais…”
Levine: Foundry Group operates with zero analysts or associates
“We, all the partners do their own work. We don't have any analysts or associates.”
Levine: Enterprise software will be rebuilt for small businesses
“There are a lot of technologies that can That have been built for larger businesses that now can be rebuilt for smaller businesses and really impact the U S economy and small businesses and the proprietors of those businesses, their lives in a positive way.”
Levine: Foundry Group allocates only one-third of investments to California
“Only about a third of our investing has been in California. A third has been in, in Colorado, and a third has been spread really across the rest of the US which is our investment, you know, target market, the full US market.”
Every successful startup suffers near-death experiences requiring durability
“Every success I've ever been in involved in has had multiple points of failure, some of them near-death experiences for the company, and the great founders and the great companies and I think the great investors are the ones that have a lot of durability throu…”
Foundry Group averages ten investments per year since 2007
“At Foundry Group, we've had a strategy of always invest at roughly the same cadence all the time. So we make about 10 new investments a year, and we've been making about 10 new investments a year since 2007 when we started Foundry.”
Foundry Group requires three of four partners to approve investments
“Technically three of the four need to vote affirmatively to make to make an investment decision.”
Foundry Group sets a higher diligence bar for passion-project music tech investments
“Jason and I spent a lot of time back and forth, almost, you know, giving ourselves a higher bar because saying, hey, we know we're excited about this because we're music geeks, but let's also, you know, make sure that before we start showing it to Seth and Bra…”
Foundry Group hired outside moderators for bi-annual partner 360 feedback
“So when we first started Foundry Group, you know, we would have an outside Person come in and moderate three 60 degree feedback sessions with us twice a year.”
Foundry Group completes between seven and ten investments per year
“We do between seven and 10 investments per year, and there, there's probably, you know, 10 times that in terms of companies that we would invest in, in terms of the qualities of the teams or the entrepreneurs, but, you know, we have to keep a very high bar.”
All Foundry Group investment decisions have been unanimous in practice
“I think in practice, all of our investment decisions have been unanimous.”
Foundry Next Allocates 25% to Fund Managers and 75% to Direct Investments
“In our case, we're putting 25% of the fund into the manager side of that. We are excited about that piece, and then 75% in directs”
Levine invested his entire life savings to launch Foundry Group
“I'd really, I mean, it truly had put up my entire life savings to back my portion of the startup cost for Foundry.”
Foundry Group restricts investments to US startups under $3M raised
“So if you've raised less than three million bucks, we're a potential target. And then we only invest in the US.”
Foundry Group initially passed on Fitbit before investing
“In the case of Fitbit it, like a number of other companies that we were investors in, you know, several which are very successful, are good examples of companies that we initially passed on, and then, you know, six or 12 months later made an investment.”
Foundry Group averages 10 new investments per year
“Because we've constrained the size of our funds, we make 10 new investments a year, and approximately, some years we do eight, some years we do 12, but it's approximately 10 a year”
Foundry Group Manages Over $1B Across Five Funds
“The Foundry Group now has five funds, four early stage and one growth fund, totalling over one billion in assets.”