The Fund
by founders, for founders
est. 2017
NYC
The Fund is a community of over 75 successful New York City founders & operators who care deeply about supporting the next generation of this city's entrepreneurs.
We've built a first-of-its-kind early stage venture fund created and fueled by our community members. Together, we’ve pooled our capital, networks, and expertise to help grow New York’s tech ecosystem in a radical new way. (It’s an experiment, and we love it.)
We invest in New York-based technology companies at their earliest stages, usually pre-seed and seed rounds. We love teams who are moving the world forward, who care about people and our collective future, and who are driven with a deep sense of purpose to turn big ideas into tangible businesses.
At the end of the day, we’re here because we believe in New York City, we believe in its people & possibilities, and we believe in giving back to this community that helped us get where we are today.
Our Members
We believe the best people to invest in startups are people who've built startups.
At its core, The Fund is a grassroots collective of some of New York City's finest founders & operators who have all invested personally into The Fund as LPs (we call them Members). They are here because they care deeply about supporting the next generation of this city's entrepreneurs. Our Members have started or built incredible companies like General Assembly, Casper, Warby Parker, Uber, Meetup, SoundCloud, ConsenSys, Summit, Handy, Plated, ClassPass, Red Antler, Hashgraph, OneMedical... we could go on.
Unlike traditional venture capital, we involve our LPs into everything we do, from sourcing deals to helping with diligence to mentoring our portfolio companies. Here are just a handful of our Members who make the all magic happen at The Fund:
Our Portfolio
We generally invest $50k - $250k in pre-seed and seed deals in NYC-based technology startups with pre-money valuations of $10mm or less, with more capital reserved for following on in future rounds. Extra emphasis is placed on purpose-driven teams, especially those making a positive impact on people and planet. We also invite our Member community to invest alongside us in certain deals so they can take a personal interest in any companies they have a strong desire to support. Our portfolio so far:
Our Founders
While very much a community-powered endeavor, The Fund is the passionate creation of its co-founders, who are not full-time VCs and have no desire to be. They are entrepreneurs and community builders first and foremost, having built companies like General Assembly, Warby Parker, Hinge, Daybreaker, AngelList and others from the ground up.
“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”