The Ledger
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BPI asked Ophelia Brown where her older male partner was
“The French, what's the French equivalent of EIF? BPI. BPI. They asked me where my older male partner was.”
Brown: Reserving capital for follow-on rounds damages overall venture fund returns
“I think actually like the follow on can really damage fund returns in that you should buy your ownership at the lowest possible cost, which is the initial cost of seed or series A.”
Brown: Startups unable to raise 36 months post-Series A lack viability
“And when we fund them at Series A, we say, you know, here's enough capital for 24, 36 months post our investment. And let's be honest, if you can't raise capital after that point, you probably aren't building a viable business.”
Blossom Capital eliminated investment committees from its decision-making process
“That's why we did away with the IC at Blossom.”
Blossom Capital will stick exclusively to Series A investments
“We're just going to stay to our swim lane and just do Series A.”
Blossom Capital shuns Series A board seats and caps annual deals
“Not at the A stage. So, our model, because we only make five investments a year, coming back to the concentrated approach, we have three partners, and we say, all of us support you at that stage.”
Blossom Capital solely leads investment rounds without VC co-investors
“So we don't we lead, we don't work with other VCs.”
Brown: Labels like 'aggressive' are gendered double standards in venture capital
“I don't think people would say that if I was a man. I think that's a comment that people level up a woman all the time.”
Brown predicts Blossom Capital will be Europe's top-performing VC fund by 2028
“The best performing fund, at least in Europe, if not the world.”
Brown: Founders should not pick VC partners in under a week
“I don't know how people would decide on a VC that they want to work with within, you know, 48 hours or a week. Like you want to know how that person's going to be able to support you, how they're going to work with you, challenge you, open doors.”
Blossom Capital allocates 90% to 95% of capital to initial checks
“And so, 90, 95% of our investment will be for initial”
Blossom Capital faced no competing term sheets on its last five deals
“The last five deals that we've done, there has been, like, no competitor. No single competing term sheet.”
Blossom Capital requires a 20% ownership target in portfolio companies
“So, and for our fund model, you know, we're pretty explicit that we want. 20% ownership, because if you're going to be one of 15 or 20 companies, we really want you to matter in the portfolio.”
Brown: Early investors in European unicorns were not US multi-stage funds
“If we look back at the history of European unicorns that have been built and look at who supported them as seed and Series A, it wasn't US multi-stage fat.”
Brown: Leading deals in venture capital inevitably requires being sharp-elbowed
“Venture is a competitive sport. If you want to lead deals and you want to be a great partner to your founders, then you are going to inevitably be a bit sharp elbow.”
Brown decides to invest or pass after the first founder meeting
“I would say within, you know, the first meeting, for sure, I come out with a decision of go, no go.”
Blossom Capital tracks founders for six to eight months before investing
“So, I did the analysis, now we're a few years in. I think we normally know founders for six to eight months pre-investment, sometimes a bit longer.”
Blossom Capital uses only partners for founder outreach, no junior staff
“When we're reaching out to speak or spend time with founders, we're partners only at the firm.”
Brown: Theoretical investment theses fail when investors ignore execution risk
“I think investors can get fooled into thinking something is a great investment thesis, and ignore the practicalities of the execution and execution risk, et cetera. So I think a lot about that, like, you can build a beautiful investment thesis around why a pie…”