Operations

We can all agree that first impressions matter. Onboarding a new investment into your VC firm’s community is a key step in setting up the investor <> company relationship for success. Join us Tuesday, August 29th for a discussion with two leaders in VC Operations, Steph Jones from Forum Ventures and Amelia Zack from M13, on how to set up effective portfolio company onboarding processes at your VC firm. This webinar is designed for people working in VC operations who want to improve the way they engage with their portfolio companies post-investment. Discussion topics: Defining the company onboarding process for your firm and why it matters Welcoming companies into your community Connecting companies to resources Setting expectations about portfolio data collection Q&A

VC Audit Definition Before we address best practices it's important to define what the VC audit entails. A VC audit is when a Venture Capital firm enlists a third-party auditor to evaluate its financial compliance. The auditor will review key fund documentation alongside recent portfolio performance to ensure the firm's valuations are accurate. Which VC Firms Require an Audit On August 23, 2023 the SEC approved new rules for private fund advisers. The changes will require all SEC-registered private fund advisers to have an annual audit regardless of size. Prior to this change, some funds were considered exempt but it was still common for VCs to conduct an audit to help better position the firm for future fundraising from potential LPs who want to see audited financials. Purpose of an Audit The purpose of a VC audit can be summarized in three parts: Ensure the fund’s General Partner(s) are operating in accordance with the fund’s LPA and that the financials reflect compliance Confirm the fund’s valuations of portfolio companies and the fund’s ownership position in them Give LPs confidence that a neutral third party validates the fund’s financial statements and assessment of its own success General VC Audit Timeline Audits are typically conducted on an annual basis using end-of-year figures. The audit process typically starts in the final month of the calendar year and wraps up during the first quarter of the calendar year. Although audits only happen once per year, it’s important to maintain clean records of things like company valuations, company financial metrics, fund expenses, capital calls, and other transactions throughout the year. Continual hygiene of fund records translates into a smoother audit process at the end of the year. Here's a general timeline for the VC audit process: Q1 - Q4 - Collect portfolio company KPI's and monitor valuation changes Q4 - Establish audit timeline with fund admin and auditor. Additionally, the pre-audit process should kick off so auditors have a chance to understand a firm's operations. Q1 - In January, firms should be doing year-end valuations and closing their books. During this month fund managers should also be reviewing the books before sending the final figures to an auditor. During January or February, the audit process officially begins. Q2 - April 30 is the official audit deadline but extensions to the deadline can be requested. For more audit best practices check this webinar co-hosted with Visible and Weaver -- How to Prepare for Your 2023 Fund Audit. How to Prepare for a VC Audit Choosing an Audit Firm This is an important step in setting yourself up for audit success. When choosing an auditor it's important to choose a service provider who specializes and understands the nuances of Venture Capital. Otherwise, you risk spending time during the audit process having to teach your auditor about your industry. You can do this by checking out their website and if they have published resources on Venture Capital then this is a great indication that they have knowledge of your industry. You should also ask the team you'll be directly working with whether they have experience in the VC industry. If you're an emerging manager and expect to need hand-holding during the audit process, make sure you choose an auditor who is open for ad-hoc questions. During the diligence process, you should ask the auditor about their policy for asking questions and if there is an additional charge. Related Resource: Five Simple Steps Key Venture Capital Staff Can Take to Support a Successful Audit Establishing a Valuation Policy It's a great idea to establish a valuation policy before your first audit. This policy outlines how your firm will justify its portfolio company valuations under different circumstances. Related resource: Establishing a Valuation Policy Preparing the Required Documents and Information While not a comprehensive list, here are some of the items that funds will likely be asked to provide to auditors: Limited Partnership Agreement Financial statements Fully signed deal documentation Invoices to prove the firm is charging LPs for permitted expenses Transaction records (capital calls, distributions, bank balances) Updated ownership positions in each company (cap tables) Proof of valuation calculations/policies Portfolio company contacts (name and email address) Portfolio company financials (year-end) Portfolio company financing documents from most recent rounds Portfolio company balance sheets Portfolio company revenue reports An established valuation policy Pro Tip: Ensure you are sending your auditor the fully executed (signed) version of the documents. Doing this will help cut down time during the audit process and help firms save money. Hustle Fund reminds investors in this article Fund Audit 101 – Everything You Need To Know that it’s the job of the VC to provide this information to auditors and that the required documentation can change from year to year. It can be helpful to ask your auditor to provide quarterly updates about what they will be asking for during the annual audit. Related Resource: 8 Questions to Ask Before Auditing Your First Venture Capital Fund Monitoring Portfolio Companies Using Visible One of the most time-consuming parts of the audit process is the back and forth that can occur when auditors need more evidence on how the VC firm arrived at company valuation figures. To justify valuations, it's important to have key information from your portfolio companies at the ready. Check out the list below to see what you need to have on file. Portfolio monitoring audit checklist: Revenue budget vs actual Cash on hand Burn rate Company performance vs business plan Details about the last round of financing Visible equips investors with a founder-friendly way to ask for key audit information from portfolio companies. Visible's Request feature allows for any custom metric, qualitative question, files, properties, and more. This streamlined approach to data collection helps VC firms keep up-to-date and accurate records about their portfolio companies throughout the year — leading to a smoother audit process. Check out an Example Request in Visible. More than 400+ VCs use Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting.

Managing company equity is a crucial part of a founder’s job duty. In the early days of building a business, chances are there will be countless advisors, investors, peers, etc. that help a business. However, most early stage businesses do not have the cashflow to compensate every advisor along the way. Founders need to get crafty with how they compensate their earliest advisors and experts — enter: advisory shares. We always recommend consulting a lawyer before taking further action on advisory shares. Learn more about advisory shares and how you can leverage them for your business below: What Are Advisory Shares? As put by the team at Investopedia, “One common class of stock is advisory shares. Also known as advisor shares, this type of stock is given to business advisors in exchange for their insight and expertise. Often, the advisors who receive this type of stock options reward are company founders or high-level executives. Advisor shares typically vest monthly over a 1-2 year period on a schedule with no cliff and 100% single-trigger acceleration.” Advisor Shares vs. Regular Shares (or Equity) Advisor shares come in different shapes and sizes. There is not a technical definition of advisor shares but is rather any form of equity in a business. Learn more about the characteristics of advisory shares below: Characteristics of Advisory Shares As mentioned above, advisor shares typically vest monthly over a 1-2 year period with no cliff. Advisory shares are typically granted as stock options but not every company grants their shares in the same way. This generally comes in the form of Non-Qualified Stock Options (NSOs). Related Read: The Main Difference Between ISOs and NSOs How Do Advisory Shares Work? While advisory shares can take on different forms, they typically can be boiled down to a few similarities. Of course, these can change depending on your business. Exchanged for advice or expertise Typically offered as NSO stock options Follow a shorter vesting schedule Learn more about how advisory shares typically work below: Implement a Startup Advisor Agreement As put by the team at HubSpot, “A startup advisor agreement is a contract between a startup and its advisor. This agreement outlines the terms of the relationship, including the responsibilities of each party and the compensation the advisor will receive.” There are countless advisor agreement templates online to get you started. The Founder Institute offers a free template called the FAST Agreement. Determine the Vesting Schedule As advisor shares are for advisors that offered their expertise, they are typically granted on a shorter vesting schedule because their value is given over a shorter amount of time. This is typically a 1 or 2 year vesting schedule (as opposed to the 4 year vesting schedule traditionally used for startup employees). Benefits of Advisory Shares Advisory shares come with their own set of pros and cons. Properly maintaining and distributing equity is a critical role of a startup founder so understand the benefits, and drawbacks, of offering advisory shares is a must. Related Resource: 7 Essential Business Startup Resources Learn more about the benefits of offering startup advisory shares below: Access to Real Experts When setting out to build a business, chances are most founders lack expertise in certain areas when it comes to building a business or in their market. However, most early-stage companies are typically strapped for cash and are unable to afford the defacto experts in the space. With advisor shares, startup founders can attract real experts to get guidance and strategic support in the early days in return for shares in the business. Related Resource: Seed Funding for Startups 101: A Complete Guide Better Network Credibility If hiring the right advisor, chances are they will be able to help beyond strategic advice or their expertise. They will be able to expose your business to their network and will be able to make introductions to new business opportunities, partnerships, investors, and potential hires. Cost-Effective Compensation As we previously mentioned, most businesses that benefit most from advisors are unable to offer them a salary or cash compensation. With advisor shares, startup founders are able to offer shares as compensation and conserve thei cash to help with scaling their business and headcount. Drawbacks of Advisory Shares Of course, offering advisor shares is not for everyone. While there are benefits to offering advisor shares, there are certainly drawbacks as well. Weighing the pros and cons and determining what is right for your business is ultimately up to you. We always recommend consulting with a lawyer or counsel when determining how to compensate advisors. Diluted Ownership The biggest drawback for most founders will be the diluted ownership. By offering shares to advisors, you will be diluting the ownership of yourself and existing shareholders. As advisors are fully vested in 1-2 years, they will potentially not be invested in future success as other stakeholders and could be costly when taking into account the diluted ownership. Potential Conflicts of Interest Advisors might not have the same motivators and incentives as your employees and other shareholders. As their ownership is generally a smaller % and their shares vest early, they are potentially not as incentivized for the growth of your company as employees and larger % owners will be. Getting in front of these conversations and making sure you have a good read on any potential advisors before bringing them onboard is a good first step to mitigate potential conflicts. Extra Stakeholder to Manage Chances are most advisors are helping other companies as well. This means that their attention is divided and you will need to ensure you are getting enough value to warrant dilution. This also means that you are responsible for managing a relationship and communication with another stakeholder in your business — what can be burdensome on some founders. The 2 Variations of Advisory Shares Advisory shares are generally offered in 2 variations — restricted stock awards and stock options. Learn more about each option and what they mean below: Restricted Stock Awards As put by the team at Investopedia, “A restricted stock award is similar to an RSU in a number of ways, except for the fact that the award also comes with voting rights. This is because the employee owns the stock immediately once it is awarded. Generally, an RSU represents stock, but in some cases, an employee can elect to receive the cash value of the RSU in lieu of a stock award. This is not the case for restricted stock awards, which cannot be redeemed for cash.” Stock Options As we mentioned, NSOs (Non-Qualified Stock Options) are commonly used for advisor shares. As put by the team at Investopedia, “A non-qualified stock option (NSO) is a type of employee stock option wherein you pay ordinary income tax on the difference between the grant price and the price at which you exercise the option… Non-qualified stock options require payment of income tax of the grant price minus the price of the exercised option.” Who Gets to Issue Advisory Shares? Issuing advisory shares is typically reserved for the founder or CEO of a company. Having a decision-making process and gameplan when issuing advisory shares is important. This might mean offering no shares at all, having an allocated amount of advisor shares from the get go, or something inbetween. Making sure your board of directors and other key stakeholders are on board is crucial to make sure that interest and strategy stays aligned for all stakeholders. How Many Shares Should You Give a Startup Advisor? Managing the balance between sufficient incentives and managing equity dilution is crucial for any business. Determining the number of shares to offer an advisor is subjective to the founder and advisor. When determining the number, a couple of things to keep in mind include: Advisor’s experience Time commitment Expected contribution As put by the team at Silicon Valley Bank, “An advisor may receive between 0.25% and 1% of shares, depending on the stage of the startup and the nature of the advice provided. There are ways to structure such compensation that ensures founders get value for those shares and still retain the flexibility to replace advisors, all without losing equity.” Let Visible Help You Streamline the Investment Management Process Use Visible to manage every part of your fundraising funnel with investor updates, fundraising pipelines, pitch deck sharing, and data rooms. Raise capital, update investors, and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Related resource: Navigating the World of QSBS: Tax Benefits and Eligibility Criteria Explained

What is VC Portfolio Management? Portfolio Management in Venture Capital is a process used by VC investors with the ultimate goal of protecting and increasing the value of their investments. Proper portfolio management is a cumulation of intelligent decision-making, information analysis, and resource commitment all aimed at achieving the value increase and stability in a range of investments. Portfolio Management within the VC context generally consists of the following: Market Research and Oversight Venture capitalists need to be extremely savvy and up-to-date with the most relevant and real-time information about the industries they investment in. Typically, VC firms specialize in a particular type of investment (pre-seed, seed, later stage, etc) and sometimes they are industry specific (B2B Saas, B2C, EnviroTech, FemTech). Therefore, the portfolio that a VC is managing may encompass many different industries. Investors should aim to understand the most up-to-date research on how each industry and market is growing and changing. This helps investors make smart initial investment decisions, inform follow-up funding decisions, and appropriately advise on timely exit strategies. Risk Profiling VC investing is a risky business. However, a clear understanding of how long it will take to gain a return on an investment is critical for investors and goes hand in hand with market research when setting up a portfolio management strategy. VCs need to profile the level of risk of each investment with an informed understanding how long it will likely take to get their initial investment back (typically 3-7 years) and how likely they are to 10x their investment. The balance of quick return with high potential is critical to consider when managing new investments in a VC portfolio. Exit Strategies As a VC is first making an investment, they typically write into their investment strategy how they hope to exit the business. This plan includes identifying exit targets and appropriate negotiation engagements in best and worst-case scenarios for the business. Strategies might be mergers, acquisitions, buyouts, or public offerings. An ideal exit strategy is important to outline as a part of a portfolio management strategy. This helps investors better mitigate risk and understand the potential outcomes and value of a portfolio. Related resource: What is Acquihiring? A Comprehensive Guide for Founders How Exactly Does Portfolio Management Work? More experienced venture capitalists will use their past experiences to determine patterns in investment strategies and the most effective way to interpret different potential investment outcome scenarios. Ultimately, portfolio management in Venture Capital comes down to understanding the delicate balance of qualitative and quantitative information about the investments in a portfolio. Portfolio management internally within a VC fund consists of market research and oversight, risk profiling, and formulating numerous potential exit strategies. In order to work through these steps, a VC will need updated information from their portfolio companies on a regular basis. VCs are looking for a mix of metrics and qualitative data from their portfolio. If you’re a VC looking to streamline the way you collect data from your portfolio companies, check out What Metrics Should I Be Collecting from my Portfolio Companies. Collecting Portfolio Data in Visible 70% of the 350+ funds using Visible are requesting data from companies on a quarterly basis. Learn more about portfolio monitoring in Visible. Check out an Example Request in Visible. Portfolio Management Metrics Of course, there are metrics that are commonly tracked amongst VC portfolio companies to help VCs stay on top of their portfolio performance. A couple of the key metrics and areas we generally see VCs focused on: Financials and cash position A VC wants the honest truth about how their companies are positioned financially. They will want to know metrics such as Cash Balance, Burn Rate, Runway, and Gross Profit. Investors may also ask for the forecast for these metrics. This information helps a VC determine whether they’re likely to reserve cash for a follow-up investment in a company and what a potential exit strategy might be. Related Resources: Which Metrics Should I Collect from My Portfolio Companies? True North KPIs Depending on the type of business a company is operating, their ‘True North’ KPIs will differ. A company’s true north KPIs should be the key performance indicators that are guiding the business every single day. Beyond revenue goals, examples of other KPIs could be active users, a customer net promoter score, active customers, or average contract value. These KPIs will help a VC determine how the company is performing versus sector benchmarks. Related Resources: Startup Metrics You Need to Monitor Ownership and Cap Table Data If a VC is looking to make a new investment, an important component they will consider for their portfolio management is how much ownership they will have in the company. A founder seeking investment should be transparent about what percent of the company is available in exchange for investment (if any) and how much is already taken. In addition to a clear ownership breakdown, a company should share information about its securities (stock options etc..). This information will be extremely relevant as the VC determines how to structure a potential investment deal. Portfolio Management Qualitative Information Collecting the metrics and quantitative data is only part of the portfolio management process. We also see investors collect a number of different qualitative fields to help them better understand how a company is performing. A couple of examples below: Wins from the Previous Period Founders shouldn’t be shy. Companies should be sure to highlight their most recent, and impressive wins as a company. This will energize and excite a VC who is determining which of their current companies they may want to make a follow-on investment into. Investors will also likely use this information when deciding whether to introduce a company to a potential follow-on investor. When investors make intros to other investors, they’re putting their social capital on the line. Companies who have instilled confidence in their current investors are more likely to get intros to follow on funders. The VC Advantage Venture capitalists take portfolio management so seriously because they of course want to see their portfolio investments succeed and make money. Therefore, outside of putting down the initial investment, venture capitalists usually incorporate many other touchpoints and opportunities to help their investments succeed. Outside of the fiscal advantage VC investments provide, a close relationship with investors and VCs can be a competitive advantage that makes or breaks a company. Ultimately, VCs want to help their portfolio companies because it helps them. In addition to actively monitoring the metric performance of their portfolio, VCs want to offer assistance in any way that they can to give their investments a competitive advantage. These competitive advantage points are also a part of a successful portfolio management strategy. VCs help their portfolio companies in a variety of ways: Taking action on metrics – As mentioned above, VCs are continuously monitoring their portfolio investments. VCs analyze their companies’ profits, customer churn, average deal size, and more. An informed VC can provide insights and advice to companies to help them improve their performance metrics. Drawing form experience managing other investments, they will have insight into what works and what to avoid or change in order to succeed.  Hiring decisions – VC partners are often ex-founders who have successfully built and exited one ore more companies. They are experienced in hiring founding teams and can help advise what roles are the most critical to higher first. Additionally, VCs networks are deep and wide. A founder may have the chance to hire a seasoned CFO or CMO through an intro from a VC. Hiring the right people is critical to the success of early stage companies and leaning on a VC partner to do so may allow a founder to access talent that wouldn’t have otherwise been interested in their company. (Relevant resource: 5 Ways to Help Your Portfolio Companies Find Talent) Fundraising assistance – Fundraising is exhausting but necessary as companies aim to quickly scale their business. After partnering with a VC for an early round, investors want to ensure the right investment partners come onboard for later rounds. If a company is on track to succeed, leaning on existing VC relationships to find additional investors is a smart idea. An existing VC will want to work with other firms or angels they get along with or align with ideologically and will often go above and beyond to help you make new connections and raise a new round of funding. (Relevant resource: How to share your fundraising pipeline with your current investors) Strategic product decisions – With a close eye on the market, a VC can be a good sounding board for what pivots or iterations to make to a company’s product. It’s easy for founders to get stuck in a silo, only focusing on the details of their product. A VC can provide helpful advice on what decisions to make that better keep in mind the market and competitors, even providing tough love on what product decisions might not be right.  Related Resources: How to Lead a Portfolio Review Meeting for VC’s How Visible Can Help Investors of all stages are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting processes. Visible helps investors streamline the way they collect data from their founders on a regular basis and provides data visualization and reporting tools.  Over 400+ Venture Capital investors are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting. Learn more.

What is Portfolio Monitoring Portfolio monitoring in the context of Venture Capital is the process of tracking the performance of investments in a venture fund. The primary focus of portfolio monitoring is tracking the financial metrics of a company but it also includes monitoring key operational changes, fluctuations in companies’ valuations, and trends in the respective company’s market or industry. We recently asked 50+ investors to choose their top three reasons for collecting structured data as a part of their portfolio monitoring processes. You can find a summary of the results below — Top three reasons investors take portfolio monitoring seriously: Investors want to better understand how their companies are performing in general Investors want to provide better support to companies Investors need to provide updates to Limited Partners How to Monitor Venture Capital Portfolio Companies Investors struggle to monitor their portfolio companies effectively because if they hear from companies at all, it’s in a format that is unstructured and in a frequency that is unpredictable. This makes it extremely difficult for investors to have an accurate data set from which they can draw meaningful insights or share updates with their Limited Partners. Investors who effectively monitor their portfolio companies have a process in place to collect structured updates from their companies on a regular basis — from day one. In the early days of a fund when there are typically less than 10 companies, this can look like sending an Excel file or Google Sheet template to portfolio companies via email and asking them to complete it and send it back. It’s important to have a reporting process in place from day one because the more time that passes, the harder it can be to change portfolio company behavior when it comes to reporting. As a fund’s portfolio grows, this process becomes cumbersome and investors often find they are wasting time chasing companies, trying to keep track of which companies have responded and which haven’t, and collating numerous templates into a master portfolio data file. Visible helps over 400+ investors streamline the way they collect, analyze, and report on their portfolio data. What Metrics to Track for VC Portfolio Companies To monitor the performance of portfolio companies it’s crucial to track the right metrics across all your companies. The most common metrics to track include: Revenue Cash Balance Monthly Net Burn Rate Runway Net Income Headcount Read more about which metrics to collect from portfolio companies and why. Based on data from the 400+ funds using Visible, most investors are asking for their companies to report 8 metrics and 1-2 qualitative questions on a quarterly basis. Learn more about VC Portfolio Data Collection Best Practices in our guide. VC Portfolio Monitoring Template Visible provides investors with a streamlined, founder-friendly way to collect structured data from portfolio companies on a regular basis. The solution in Visible that empowers investors to easily collect KPIs is called a Request. Visible allows investors to build custom data Requests that support: Automated email reminders to reduce chasing companies Assigning custom metrics to certain companies Sending a Request to multiple points of contact Asking for budget vs actuals Secure linked-based forms for companies Portfolio companies reporting in multiple currencies Check out an Example Request in Visible. Portfolio Monitoring Tips for Venture Capital Investors Set expectations early on. Consider outlining your reporting requirements in a side letter Have a process in place to collect data from day one — it’s harder to change reporting behavior change later on Incorporate reporting expectations into your onboarding process Check out this Guide to Onboarding New Companies into Your VC Portfolio. Communicate the why to portfolio companies. Explain how responses will help inform portfolio support Explain which data will be shared with LPs and which is just for internal processing Explain how it will be used to inform follow on investment decisions Make your data Requests founder-friendly. Don’t ask for more than 5-8 metrics Use metric definitions to reduce back-and-forth Send your Request at the same time every period Make sure you have the right points of contact at the company Don’t make your companies create an account if they don’t want to Turning Your Portfolio Data into Meaningful Insights After going through the effort to collect structured data from portfolio companies the next important step is turning into important insights that can be shared with your team and eventually your Limited Partners. Visible has a suite of tools to help with portfolio data analysis including Robust, flexible dashboards that can be used for Internal Portfolio Review meetings Portfolio metric dashboards to help with cross-portfolio insights Tools to slice and dice your portfolio data by custom segments Over 400+ Venture Capital investors are using Visible to streamline their portfolio monitoring and reporting.

Why It’s Important to Have a Platform Manager in VC Platform managers are instrumental in the success of startups, which is why the role of platform managers within VC firms has become increasingly important and there has been a surge in hiring for this position. By providing guidance and support to portfolio companies, Platform Managers help founders navigate the challenges of building and scaling a startup. They offer advice and support on everything from product development and fundraising to talent acquisition and marketing. Platform managers act as a liaison between portfolio companies and the VC firm, helping founders access the resources and expertise they need to succeed. Hiring a platform manager can also help VCs enhance their value proposition and differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market. Some other ways in which they can also add value to VC firms and their portfolio companies are: Strategic Focus: A platform manager can help VCs develop a strategic focus for their investments by identifying areas where they can add value beyond just providing capital. The platform manager can work with portfolio companies to help them leverage the VC’s network, resources, and expertise to scale their businesses. Portfolio Optimization: A platform manager can help VCs optimize their portfolio by identifying areas of overlap or synergy between portfolio companies. They can also help VCs identify potential acquisition targets and facilitate mergers and acquisitions. Value Creation: A platform manager can help create value for portfolio companies by providing access to resources such as talent, capital, and strategic partnerships. This can help portfolio companies grow faster and more efficiently. Brand Building: A platform manager can help VCs build their brand by creating and promoting events, content, and other initiatives that showcase the VC’s expertise and thought leadership in their respective domains. Investor Relations: A platform manager can help VCs manage their relationships with investors by creating reports, organizing events, and providing regular updates on the performance of portfolio companies. How to Succeed as a Platform Manager in VC To succeed as a platform manager in VC, individuals must have a deep understanding of the startup ecosystem and the challenges that founders face. They must be able to build relationships with portfolio companies and act as a trusted advisor to founders. Additionally, they must have strong analytical skills, as well as the ability to manage complex projects and navigate volatile market conditions. They must be able to analyze financial data and market trends to identify opportunities and make informed decisions. They must also have the ability to manage complex projects and navigate volatile market conditions. To get into venture capital as a platform manager, individuals should focus on building a strong network in the startup ecosystem. They should attend industry events, participate in startup accelerators, and connect with successful founders and investors. It’s also important to gain relevant experience in areas such as product development, marketing, and finance. It also helps to read industry blogs and publications to stay up to date on the latest trends and funding rounds. Best Practices for Platform Management Some best practices include, how to identify potential portfolio companies, how to add value to portfolio companies, and how to optimize the firm’s portfolio. Identifying Potential Portfolio Companies The first step in effective platform management is identifying potential portfolio companies that align with the VC firm’s investment focus and criteria. To do this, platform managers should: Develop a deep understanding of the VC firm’s investment focus and criteria, including industry sectors, geographies, and stages of investment. Network and stay up-to-date on industry trends and emerging technologies to identify potential investment opportunities. Leverage the VC firm’s network to source and evaluate potential portfolio companies. Conduct thorough due diligence on potential portfolio companies to ensure they meet the firm’s investment criteria and have strong growth potential. Adding Value to Portfolio Companies Once a portfolio company has been identified and invested in, platform managers can help add value to the company by providing access to resources and expertise that can help the company scale and succeed. To do this, platform managers should: Work closely with portfolio company management teams to identify areas where the VC firm can provide value beyond just capital. Provide access to the VC firm’s network of industry experts, potential customers, and strategic partners. Help portfolio companies recruit top talent by providing access to the VC firm’s talent network and offering guidance on hiring best practices. Help portfolio companies develop and execute growth strategies, including marketing and sales strategies, product development, and international expansion. Optimizing the Firm’s Portfolio Finally, platform managers should focus on optimizing the VC firm’s portfolio by identifying potential areas of overlap or synergy between portfolio companies and helping to facilitate mergers and acquisitions. To do this, platform managers should: Conduct regular portfolio reviews to assess the performance of each portfolio company and identify areas where the VC firm can add value. Identify potential acquisition targets that can help strengthen the VC firm’s portfolio and create synergies across portfolio companies. Help facilitate mergers and acquisitions by providing guidance on deal structuring and negotiation. Work closely with portfolio company management teams to identify opportunities for cross-collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the portfolio. Resources for Platform Managers VC Platform Jobs VC Platform Global Community Let’s Talk Ops OpenLP resources across the venture ecosystem Resources From the Visible Blog How to Hire for Your First VC Platform Role Defining Your VC Platform Approach Using the TOPSCAN Method Guide: VC Portfolio Support Best Practices How to Plan a Top-Tier CEO Summit How to help your portfolio companies find talent Up-and-Coming Platform Managers in VC Meryl Breidbart | Director of Investment Operations | At One Ventures How did you get into platform? I started my career as a designer and founder of Chirps, so when I began at At One Ventures as an investor, I naturally gravitated to filling our platform holes. I started by organizing our first AGM and building some fund partnerships and from there, helped launch our platform and operations team, which now includes a VP of Talent, a VP of Marketing, and a Venture Partner with extensive commercialization experience. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? We know we can’t be excellent at everything, so we have decided to double down on a few areas: talent, marketing, fundraising support, and commercialization. I specifically focus on fundraising. I build pitch decks, run pitch practice sessions, and make introductions for our founders to our vast network of follow-on investors. In addition to this work, I also support our firm with internal operations – assisting with our fundraising efforts and making sure we run a tight ship. What’s your favorite part of the role? Working directly with our founders! I am an extrovert and get energy from talking to lots of different people. I enjoy reducing the amount of work our founders have to do and providing them with best practices and processes so that they can learn quickly. Advice for first-time platform managers? You can’t be all things to all people. Figure out 1-2 strategic goals for the first year of the role and make sure to prioritize those. Otherwise, you will find yourself being a recruiter for company A and a PR firm for company B, which will not scale and will not help you deepen expertise. Mal Filipowska |Portfolio & Platform Manager | Seedstars How did you get into platform? For the first five years of my Venture Capital career, I was always on the investment side of the fund: sourcing deals, preparing investment memos etc. I executed over 30 transactions across Europe, MENA, and India. A big part of my role was building relationships with other VCs and sharing investment opportunities: that’s how I met Seedstars. I instantly fell in love with their investment thesis and commitment to empowering start-ups in emerging markets globally.It was mutual, and the Partners of Seedstars International Ventures invited me to join the team. The platform role was an obvious fit: it was 100% global (opposite to our Investment Managers, divided by regions). It allowed me to continue working with founders from diverse backgrounds from over 100+ start-ups in almost 40 different countries, be hands-on in supporting them in solving their most urgent challenges and have a tangible impact on their journey to success. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? As a global fund, we decided to focus on the most urgent and universal aspect of every start-up: growth. As we can read in the famous Paul Graham essay: “if you get growth, everything else tends to fall into place”.After we invest, our portfolio companies get lifetime access to the “Growth Track” – a tailored consultancy program for start-up teams. It is delivered by growth experts and helps our portfolio companies to develop a long-lasting and sustainable growth strategy. We host such a program twice a year, so portfolio companies can always bring their new employees for us to teach them the growth mindset & methodologies. What’s your favorite part of the role? My favorite part of the Platform role is how it fosters my professional growth within the Venture Capital industry. In the platform role, I am more exposed to the everyday challenges faced by founders, which enables me to actively participate in solving them together. There is no space for beautiful pitch decks or listening to what the VC wants to hear – we’re in the same boat now, so my entire focus is working towards a common goal. Personally, I find it very developing and satisfying. Advice for first-time platform managers? Take your time: Spend some time to dive deep into the role and understand the needs of your portfolio companies. By doing so, you’ll be better equipped to help them succeed.Find your niche: Focus on common challenges your portfolio companies face and become an expert in addressing them. This approach allows you to add “scalability” to your support and significantly impact the board.Stay connected to the investment side: Don’t lose touch with the investment aspect of venture capital. Participate in investment committees and the investment process to maintain a well-rounded perspective and contribute more effectively to your portfolio’s growth.Collaborate with the VC community: Each player contributes uniquely to the world of venture capital. Instead of competing, work alongside your co-investors, join forces with your co-investors, complement each other and build on each other’s strengths.Connect with founders personally: Meeting your founders in person and getting to know them as individuals will help build stronger relationships and foster a deeper understanding of their needs and motivations Regan Gore | Community & Operations Associate | Eniac Ventures How did you get into platform? Prior to joining Eniac, I was in consulting and executive search, and then I taught first grade during COVID. I have honestly found so many overlaps between teaching and platform, and I think that experience helped me hit the ground running when I joined the VC world. I was really lucky to have a wonderful resource in Sam Gelt (a16z) who reached out to me after connecting in a Slack group and helped guide me in my VC job process. Through her and a few other mentors (huge shoutout to Mariana Consuegra (previously BCGDV), Kenyon Cory (Petal), and the Aspire to Her team), I was able to learn more about community and different roles that were community-focused, ultimately finding a path to VC. I have found that platform is a great way to connect with founders and be part of their journeys, especially at a seed firm where we can really provide help and value right away. What’s your favorite part of the role? My absolute favorite part of the role is getting to speak to so many interesting founders as well as connecting with phenomenal partners who can be great resources to our founders. Deepening those relationships every day drives so much of my work, and I love that each day is a little different! Advice for first-time platform managers? My best advice for first-time platform managers is to create your own cohort of founders in your portfolio who you trust + they trust you. I have found this small group has been a helpful sounding board to many ideas, they’ve given me very honest feedback on our platform offerings and have tested out ideas before I’ve brought them to the larger group, and they are great cheerleaders at events and in our slack group! I think a lot of first-time platform managers think that you have to have a “perfect” facade when talking to founders, but they are in the same boat as you, and the relationship is so much better when everyone is open and honest about where they are, what they are working on, and where they can use help. Rachel Hodes | Director of Platform | NextView Ventures How did you get into platform? When I was a senior in college, I decided to take an internship at this relatively new, female-founded, D2C brand that had just closed its Series A. Taking the 1 train down to their chic Chinatown office, which one day became their flagship store, was always the highlight of my week. I remember feeling impressed and inspired by the creativity, collaboration, and community-building that went down in that millennial-pink wonderland, and I knew that this experience was the beginning of my addiction to all things startups. I spent the rest of my early to mid-twenties operating at various early-stage consumer and B2B companies. The “throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks” kind of days… *sigh* memories. But like most people, the pandemic forced me to pause, reevaluate my path forward, and be incredibly intentional about what I wanted to do next. I knew I was outgrowing those early-stage operating days but I also knew I wasn’t quite ready to quit startups cold turkey. During this transitional time, I learned about platform from a friend who was actually trying to hire me for a role at his boutique recruitment firm: “Your role here would be similar to that of a platform person’s role at a VC firm.” Oh really? Bet. I started doing my research and realized that platform encompasses all the things I love to do (content, community, operations, marketing, events, etc.) PLUS it directly supports startups and founders in a MAJOR way?! Sign me up. By some kind of kismet, stars aligning chance, my now mentor, Stephanie Manning Cohen (Operating Partner at Lerer Hippeau) had just messaged me on LinkedIn and was interested in chatting about an open platform role on her team. This particular position didn’t end up being the right fit, but Stephanie connected me to the partners at NextView, and it’s been a match made in seed-stage heaven ever since ❤️ What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? We focus on the four things that matter most at the seed stage: building a great product, getting great customers, hiring a great team, and not running out of money. I would say my specialty is bringing people together in a meaningful way, and I’m excited to explore that more with NextView’s founder initiatives this year. Stay tuned! What’s your favorite part of the role? Running the NextView accelerator program, hands-down. Bringing a group of early-stage entrepreneurs together and creating meaningful programming and memorable experiences that actually move the needle in propelling their businesses forwards?! There’s nothing more rewarding. It’s also pretty special to see lasting friendships evolve out of the programming you create. The startup founder journey can be a lonely one, and if I can help people feel a little less alone… that makes my heart and soul oh so happy. Advice for first-time platform managers? This role is inherently more fun because you’re doing all the things, but that variety of work also comes with its fair share of challenges. One day you’re working on a website redesign, the next day you’re working on an accelerator kickoff event, and the next day you’re working on establishing your firm’s Affinity foundations. Whatever major project you’re working on, you need at least one, if not two, point partners who can support you in driving towards decisions within the confines of those projects. Aim to divvy up your point partners based on the relevancy of the project at hand and meet with these partners on a regular basis as you’re moving through your work; get their take on things, ask them for advice, talk through your plan for prioritization, etc. The platform work we do on a daily basis is incredibly different than what the investment team is working on; it’s important that you have someone in your corner who has visibility into the work you’re doing and the progress you’re making. And trust me… it makes things a lot easier and more efficient when you’re getting the green light from one or two people vs the entire partnership 🙂 Jenna Borowski | Head of Platform | American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate & Social Impact How did you get into platform? I’ve long been passionate about the role business can play in making the world a better place so when I learned that American Family Insurance was building an Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, I was immediately intrigued. For those who are not familiar, the AmFam Institute’s mission is to close equity gaps in the US and we do that through both running a traditional venture capital fund and developing a portfolio of community partnerships and programs. My background was in communications, but I also had some experience within the startup community and the nonprofit, social impact space. After a lot of networking and a little luck, I took a role leading some of the Institute’s local partnerships and managing a community events space that catered to mission-driven organizations. As I was in on the ground floor of the Institute, I took the opportunity to learn as much as I could about the venture fund, intrigued by the innovation and potential for large-scale impact. This allowed me to dip my toe into platform by helping plan a few events and developing resources for our founders and in less than two years (with help from the pandemic unfortunately shutting down the event space), I made the jump to build out and manage our platform and portfolio services full-time. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? The AmFam Institute is focused on creating an inclusive community of high-performing, mission-driven founders who feel authentically supported and appreciated. We do our best to connect our founders to each other by hosting dinners when we’re attending large conferences and by hosting our annual founder summit, which is definitely my favorite event. Outside of gathering our founders together in person, we’ve put a big emphasis on supporting the health and well-being of our portfolio so we offer a coaching stipend, host monthly mastermind peer group sessions, and offer free drop-in coaching, all in hopes of preventing burnout and helping everyone feel supported because we know being a founder is often a really high-stress and isolating job. I also have to give a huge shoutout to our storytelling and social media team who amplify the work of our portfolio companies through video and social media. My specialty is definitely community building and events so I tend to focus on that, but the content creation is a really valuable part of our post-investment support. What’s your favorite part of the role? There are so many things I love about my role. From the creativity required and the continuous learning to the countless friends I’ve made within the platform community, there’s a lot to love. However, one of the simplest joys for me over the past year has been watching our community grow. It feels almost magical when I see two founders bond at an event or I hear that they’ve stayed in touch long after an introduction was made. It’s a lot of hard work to curate a space where those kinds of connections can form so it’s really rewarding to see it all come together and to know we’re (hopefully) helping them feel a little more connected and supported as they do the hard work of building these truly incredible, world-changing companies. Advice for first-time platform managers? Get connected and don’t be afraid to ask questions! My job got a lot easier when I joined platform groups like Let’s Talk Ops and VC Platform where there are hundreds of brilliant people willing to share their wisdom. It can be intimidating to ask a question when you’re still learning about venture, but there are so many people that enter platform roles without prior VC experience that most likely someone has the same question… or at least remembers having the same question when they started and is willing to jump in with an answer. Cynthia Matar | Head of Platform and Communications | Swiftarc Ventures How did you get into platform? Interestingly enough, I started my career at the Firm as an intern for an analyst position. During my time as an intern/analyst, I discovered how much I enjoyed everything other than the financial/diligence part of the role. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with founders and finding ways to help, building the firm’s brand and image, networking with investors for business development efforts, and planning and executing activation events. They didn’t quite know where to place me, but understood there was a need for the types of services I was offering. The team very quickly realized the one thing missing (an emerging role in the VC space at the time) was a Platform role/division that could manage all post-investment support and services. I worked my way up from Platform & Media Coordinator to Head of Platform during my time at the Firm and couldn’t be more proud of what we as a team have accomplished together. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? My specialty encompasses Public Relations, Internal & External Communications, Branding/Marketing, Investor Relations, Fundraising and Business Development, as well as Events & Networking. As an early-stage firm, a lot of effort is put into building the Firm’s image and network. What’s your favorite part of the role? My favorite part of the role is quite simply, the versatility of it all. No day looks the same, which makes the role so engaging and exciting to be a part of. I jokingly refer to Platform managers as the “Jack or Jane of all trades.” These are individuals who are able to wear multiple hats and offer a multitude of post-investment support and services. I love the collaboration that comes with the role – you find yourself working closely with everyone across the board (Senior Executives, Founders, Team Members, Stakeholders, and Investors). One of the most exciting parts I’ve had to play was launching each of the Firm’s funds with differing investment theses, PR and Marketing strategies, digital content, activation events, etc. You have a hand in everything, which gives you better insight into the moving parts of how the “engine” runs at a firm. Advice for first-time platform managers? My advice for first-time platform managers is to always be curious! Network with people across the industry, regardless of their roles – remember, you have a hand in it all. Share your thoughts, always. Your perspective is unique in that it offers an unbiased opinion and combines a variety of your experiences, making it refreshing to those who might have a standard set of questions or best practices they always use. Always be a student – your willingness to learn new approaches to apply across the firm is your superpower in this role. Allie Mullen | Director of Platform | Wireframe Ventures How did you get into platform? I’ve spent my career as a startup operator, early employee, and wear-er of many hats. I love working with founders and I love building companies. I’ve always kept a pulse on VC and since I didn’t have a background in finance or consulting, I didn’t think there was an opportunity for me to break in. But as soon as I found out about Platform roles, I knew it was for me. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? Wireframe specializes in helping extraordinary early-stage founders on a mission to improve the health of people and the planet. Our team has deep industry expertise, having been founders and investors in climate, health, and bio for over a decade. I joined the team as a Platform team of one and built the function from the ground up, supporting the fund’s operations, marketing, community-building, events, and post-investment support. What’s your favorite part of the role? It sounds cliche, but I love that every day is different and that I get to work across so many different functions. I also love that this role is still relatively new to the industry and continues to evolve. As Platform leaders, we get to define what Platform means to our fund. There is still a lot of room and opportunity for innovation for what the future of Platform looks like. I am excited to be part of it and to continue to accelerate growth for our founders. Advice for first-time platform managers? Build relationships with other Platform leaders, especially those who have been in it for a while. Platform can be a lonely role, especially for those of us who are teams of one, so connecting with others early on can supercharge your success. Plus, Platform folks are usually pretty similar people and tend to get along well (type-A, social, creative, love a challenge, efficiency, and helping others). Olivia Zdeb | Operations Manager | Hyde Park Venture Partners How did you get into platform? At first, I thought my journey to platform was random, but it turns out it’s a common path for many. I started my career in special recreation, then transitioned to Parks & Recreation for a neighboring Chicago municipality. With over 15 years of experience in events, program organization, marketing, and community engagement, it almost feels like I was training for this role all along. Leaving parks, finishing my master’s degree, and finding my dream job wouldn’t have been in my five-year plan before the pandemic. Taking the risk to leave my established career without a clear roadmap was worth it in the end. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? In addition to the financial support we provide, we also prioritize building strong relationships with our portfolio companies to better understand their needs and to provide them with tailored support to help them grow and succeed. HPVP operates on a true partnership model and focuses on companies rooted in the Midwest, Toronto, and Atlanta. This geographic focus allows us to provide dedicated attention and responsiveness to each of our portfolio companies. Our Platform team collaborates to provide impactful community-building events for our portfolio companies, offer problem-solving resources whenever teams ask for support, and offer personalized talent resources through our Talent Partner Jim Conti. As my role is still relatively new, my value-add continues to evolve with each new investment. With each new investment, I have the chance to establish a relationship with the founding team, understand their unique needs and challenges, and improve my ability to make a significant impactful in my role. What’s your favorite part of the role? I love the creative freedom this role provides. It’s rewarding to see my ideas come to life in the form of marketing campaigns and events that bring new value to our team and community. As a former government employee, I find it refreshing to be in a role with fewer restrictions. As HPVP’s first Operations Manager and the second member of the Platform team, my role has evolved and expanded beyond my initial responsibilities. It’s exciting to me that I can personally drive meaningful improvements for our HPVP team and our portfolio companies. Advice for first-time platform managers? As a first-time platform manager myself, I suggest joining or creating a community of like-minded platform professionals. We’re all learning and growing as we go, so it’s essential to have a support system. I’m an active member of the Let’s Talk Ops, VC Platform, and V2:VC communities. These communities are filled with kind, helpful, and creative individuals who share ideas, collaborate on events, and offer advice based on past experiences. One suggestion would be to take action and “just do it.” While researching the best software, vendor, or service can be helpful, it’s essential to remember that what works for one firm may not work for another. Instead, work within your current systems to maximize their capabilities. Then, identify the constraints that are limiting your next steps. This approach can help you identify the specific resources you need to take your firm to the next level. Anna Jacobson | Operations & Data Partner | Operator Collective Anna leads Operator Collective’s operations vertical, including data analytics, investment operations, internal operations, investor relations, fundraising operations, and fund administration. Prior to joining OpCo in 2020, Anna earned a Master’s in Information and Data Science from UC Berkeley, where she honed her data science expertise, concentrating on predictive analytics, machine learning, and data visualization. An engineer by training and experienced project manager, she is a cross-functional business leader, data strategist, and operations veteran who is passionate about combining technology with process and design to ensure outstanding collaboration across technical, business, and creative teams. How did you get into platform? Very organically! I had never heard the term before I started this job; it does not appear in my job description and even today we don’t call ourselves a Platform Team with a capital P. But most of the work that I do – whether in Operations or in Data – is deeply integrated with our platform functions, so much so that I do now consider myself to be someone who works in platform. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? In a word – connection. Our model is based on the power that is generated by making connections between our portfolio companies and our 200+ Operator LPs – exceptional tech executives – and their networks. My specialty is building and orchestrating the tools and processes that we use in each step of the connection process – to identify, facilitate, track, report, and everything in between. What’s your favorite part of the role? I love it all – from high-level strategic thinking to hands-on building to information design and communications – I find it all profoundly satisfying. Advice for first-time platform managers? Venture is a young industry and platform is an even younger function within venture. This means that practically every part of it is undefined and evolving. This can be a challenge – what exactly are we supposed to be doing?!? – but also an opportunity – we aren’t constrained by what has been done before! Seek allies to work through the challenges and be open and ready to seize on the opportunities. Oleh Karizskyi| Head of Platform | Flyer One Ventures How did you get into platform? Initially, I joined Flyer One Ventures 2 years ago as a Growth/Operations Manager helping portfolio companies with growth, b2b sales, and performance marketing. We did not have a Platform Manager at that time. After 6 months, my team lead left the firm and I became a Band-Aid guy within the fund helping with partnerships and expanding perks, organizing webinars, creating a portal for portcos’ founders etc. Ultimately, the role transformed into Platform Manager combined with the firm’s Investment activity. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? Our fund’s structure is pretty unusual. The majority of our team consists of operators. We have 17 team members, and only 4 of them are in the investment team. We help portcos with hiring, marketing&branding, PR&communications, fundraising, operations, legal issues, and finance support. We have a startup atmosphere in our fund, thus we do not super restrict ourselves with responsibilities zones. One of the major trends inside our Platform is switching from a Hands-on approach towards scaling support by expanding our network of advisors. Personally, I combine fund & community operations (the latest tasks were the implementation of the founders’ request tracking system, arranging webinars for portcos and for the Ukrainian startup community, compiling an internal newsletter for the fund’s community etc), business development & networking, investment activity responsibilities such as startup due diligence, expanding our pipeline and helping portcos with fundraising. We also have a Head of Operations, her responsibilities overlap with mine, so we complement each other. What’s your favorite part of the role? Dynamism and helping founders. I do not get bored by doing the same duties, because they always change. Also, it is great to communicate with founders, find their pain points, and try to help them. It is crucial to show them that they are not alone in their journey. Advice for first-time platform managers? Define what are the pain points of your founders in terms of the fund’s Platform and their businesses, because it will be a waste of time creating value that is not requested. A person can do it by gathering the notes from the investment team that join the board meeting and 1:1 calls. Also, it is helpful to conduct a couple of interviews with founders to get to know founders better. But it shouldn’t be a surprise for first-time managers to find out that smth that was requested is now not needed 🙂 My personal insight was that founders do not share all pains. Such interviews can help founders to reveal their problems and create a comfortable atmosphere for future sharing. Sophie Panarese | Head of Platform & Operations | 186 Ventures How did you get into platform? I began my career at Cambridge Associates learning the ins and outs of asset allocation, manager selection, and overall portfolio construction. While there, I had exposure to all asset classes including Venture Capital. It became immediately apparent to me that the entrepreneurial nature of early-stage VC was something that I wanted to explore one day. With this exciting new goal in my head, I realized that gaining hands-on operating experience would sharpen my Swiss army knife, so I joined the strategy team at HomeGoods where I spent a few years wearing a handful of hats. From there, I began networking and with a little bit of grit and a lot of luck, I’ve found myself at 186 Ventures leading our platform and operations efforts and couldn’t be happier. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? The entire team at 186 Ventures (3 of us) comes from operating backgrounds. We understand that the success of a company goes beyond the initial investment and requires ongoing guidance, strategic advice, and access to relevant networks. Our post-investment support is multifaceted and tailored to meet the specific needs of each portfolio company. We act as strategic partners, working closely with founders and their teams to understand their unique challenges, goals, and aspirations. By leveraging our industry knowledge, operational expertise, and network connections, we provide targeted guidance and insights to help companies overcome obstacles and seize growth opportunities. What’s your favorite part of the role? One of the most exhilarating and rewarding aspects of working in Platform is the opportunity to partner closely with founders who are on a mission to reshape the world as we know it. This is, by far, my favorite part of the role. Collaborating side-by-side with visionary founders who are driven by a deep sense of purpose and a desire to disrupt existing paradigms is truly incredible. These founders possess an unwavering commitment to making a meaningful impact, and being a (small) part of their journey is both inspiring and energizing. Advice for first-time platform managers? Be a lifelong student: The role of a platform manager is dynamic and ever-evolving. Stay open to learning new approaches and strategies that can be applied across your organization. So much of your role is connecting the dots and putting theory into action, so seek out mentors who you trust and who have faced similar challenges. Prioritize user experience: As a platform manager, it’s crucial to prioritize the needs and experiences of your users (Founders, Ecosystem Operators, LPs, Vendors, fellow team members). Continuously seek feedback, understand their pain points, and iterate on your platform to enhance its usability and value. Platform can be defined as a product. By iterating on your product offering, and aligning your product goals with the goals of the investment team, you will play a huge role in differentiating your venture firm from others. Julia Grassa | Head of Talent | Company Ventures How did you get into platform? My professional journey started in non-profit management, where I worked alongside Jewish communities, particularly with teenagers and young adults, to foster meaningful connections and witness their growth over time. Despite initially perceiving my transition to the tech industry as a major shift, I gradually realized that it was a natural fit for me. My initial role as the Community Manager for the Urban Tech Hub program, part of the Grand Central Tech Accelerator, involved establishing the program’s daily operations, yet I was drawn to community engagement as it aligned with my passion. Currently, I lead Talent initiatives and oversee key recruitment searches while facilitating synergistic opportunities between our portfolio companies and prospective candidates. What’s your favorite part of the role? Over the past 6.5 years, my role has evolved in tandem with the dynamic VC landscape, keeping me perpetually motivated and energized. There’s never a dull moment and that’s what keeps me motivated. Advice for first-time platform managers? I recommend starting by observing the firm’s operations, listening attentively to the founders’ needs, and refraining from impulsive action. As someone who is proactive by nature, I must remind myself to take a step back, breathe, and then proceed deliberately. As many platform professionals face burnout, similar to my experience in non-profit work, it’s essential to prioritize self-care for both the body and mind to excel in this role. Kira Colburn | Head of Platform | Work-Bench How did you get into platform? I started my career at a tech PR agency, helping build narratives and stories for a handful of VC clients. After a few years, I realized agency life and working in-house as a VC Platform leader had a lot of similarities and decided to make the jump. In both worlds, days are filled with endless possibilities of things to do and projects to jump into, but instead of working with a variety of clients, I now get to work with our portfolio companies. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? I lean into my strengths coming from a PR background. To put it simply, “Head of Platform” at Work-Bench can be defined as strategy, planning, and execution between our community flywheels of content and events. This includes communications and marketing support for our firm (including writing our Enterprise Weekly Newsletter and managing our active blog) and for our portfolio (including helping them garner PR for their initial launches) as well as event planning to expand our growing community. While our investment team focuses on research and portfolio GTM strategy, my job as the firm’s community builder is to pull commonalities out of our portfolio and broader network, then plan workshops, meetups, blog posts, etc. around those commonalities. What’s your favorite part of the role? My favorite part of being in Platform is the opportunity to draw out stories within enterprise software. It’s no secret that the enterprise software industry is traditionally less sexy than consumer and even general tech. However, there is an interesting story behind every enterprise startup – you just have to dig a little. I love looking into the founder’s journey, where the startup idea percolated, from, how their product impacts the greater way something operates, or how their team is changing culture standards. Advice for first-time platform managers? Over my 5+ years working with and in a VC firm, the “Platform” role has always meant a mishmash of things – everything from portfolio GTM support and recruiting, to event and community planning, to content strategy and execution, to investor relations, to operations management and so much more. Really every and anything under the sun. My advice to first-time platform managers – and what’s going to be most impactful for your firm, and your portfolio companies, but also keep you sane – is to identify your superpower and double down on it. Give up the urge to boil the ocean and focus on a few key areas or projects that can move the needle in a tangible timeframe. Sebastien Boucraut | Chief Scaling Officer | Breega How did you get into platform? Breega is a VC fund founded by Entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. It was logical, right at the inception of Breega, to dedicate an operational team for the Start-ups. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? We focus on: (i) setting up foundations per vertical with following expertises: Sales & Structure, Growth, Talent, Branding & Com (ii) accompanying the Founders to review/crack an operational matter, such as GTM, Pricing Strategy, operational efficiency, Re-branding, Re-shape the organisation, the Roles & Responsibilities for a stronger performance (iii) Mentoring & Coaching What’s your favorite part of the role? When we have a strong impact on the Start-up & its Founders and we are able to measure it. Advice for first-time platform managers? Be pragmatic, adapt to the structure and the DNA of the Start-ups & Founders, and always be honest to yourself on what you can and cannot provide. Kayla Liederbach| Communications & Marketing Manager | Strut Consulting How did you get into platform? I got introduced to the wild world of VC platform when I was managing marketing at a VC-backed tech startup. One of our investors was a General Partner at a venture capital firm, and a mentor of mine. He asked me if I could help his firm put more intention and coordination behind the marketing efforts of its programs based around the world, and raise the visibility of the firm as the brand behind it all. This was nearly a decade ago when best practices for VC marketing weren’t widely known or shared. Over the years I have figured out what works—and just as importantly, what doesn’t work—when it comes to attracting founders and LPs by doing social media, content, newsletters, events, and PR for venture capital. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? At Strut, we are a consulting firm helping new and established fund managers navigate the complexities of VC fund management. Our expert team provides strategy, instills best practices, and delivers tactical support in Operations, CFO Services, Investor Relations, HR & Talent, Marketing & PR, and Events. My specialty is handling Marketing and PR for Strut Clients. I provide strategic guidance and tactical support based on their current needs—whether it’s writing punchy tweets or landing headlines in TechCrunch. What’s your favorite part of the role? My favorite part of my role is helping people tell their stories. I am a believer that every single person (or company) has an interesting story, but they don’t always know how to tell it. That’s where I can help by doing a deep dive and seeing what comes out. In life, I enjoy looking at patterns, and seeing the big picture. People who know me well have told me that I am a very entertaining and animated storyteller. Advice for first-time platform managers? When it comes to marketing, don’t try to do too many initiatives if you don’t have the bandwidth for it. VC firms often compare themselves against top players and want to do all the marketing initiatives they see the industry leaders are doing, like podcasts. But if you spread yourself too thin, you will burn out. Choose to do a few marketing initiatives that you know are working well and that you enjoy doing. If we aren’t enjoying ourselves, then what the heck are we even doing? 😉 Gil Birnboim | Head of Platform | UpWest How did you get into platform? During the last decade, I have gained valuable experience working closely with startups across various industries and domains, focusing on different aspects of ventures and the Tech ecosystem. Throughout my journey, I discovered that my true passion lies in empowering startup operations and sharing best practices to fuel the growth of founders and help set their companies up for success. What’s the focus of your firm’s post-investment support; what’s your specialty? UpWest is a Silicon Valley-based Seed fund purposefully designed to help Israeli startups break into the US market. We have backed over 90 companies and helped them grow through our hands-on approach. UpWest provides the essential ingredients for success: Seed funding, proximity and access to markets and capital, a supportive community of talented peers, and a workspace conducive to rapid development and deployment. My specialty centers on creating a supportive community where founders thrive and leverage collective knowledge for success. By implementing a founder-first approach that is deeply focused on, and consistently influenced by the journey of entrepreneurs tackling similar fundamental market entry and growth challenges, I bring together our founders and facilitate various opportunities for them to connect, share their experiences, and support one another in overcoming challenges. What’s your favorite part of the role? The people! Working alongside inspiring, resilient, and ambitious individuals that are bringing disruptive ideas to life. Advice for first-time platform managers? My advice for a first-time platform manager is to embrace versatility and plan a roadmap for each area of responsibility. The platform landscape is expansive, so being able to switch between projects and tasks demands mental flexibility and self-discipline. It’s essential to connect with like-minded individuals and cultivate a supportive community for yourself. The opportunity to exchange perspectives, brainstorm ideas, and learn from others’ experiences is immensely valuable. Adrienne Mangual | VP of Finance & Operations | The Artemis Fund “We use Visible to connect monthly KPIs and annual impact metrics from our portfolio companies. In turn, we use monthly data to stay on top of performance and the annual impact data is used in our annual impact report. Examples of data collected include revenue dollars driven to small businesses, families served and jobs created. We strive to be a data-driven venture firm, and Visible allows us to do just that.” More Platform Managers to Watch: Eileen McMahon Coordinator of Operations at Prelude Ventures Ellie Davis of TechNexus Frances Choi Operations and Events at Kindred Ventures Lu Yu at UpHonest Capital Emma Sissman Director of Portfolio Acceleration at SJF Ventures Kristin (Stannard) Kent Principal at Expa Arnaud Hochart Growth Manager at Breega Olivia O’Sullivan Head of Platform at Forum Ventures Improve Post-Investment Operations with Visible Over 400+ funds are using Visible to improve transparency across their funds through streamlined portfolio data collection, easy-to-build dashboards for Portfolio Reviews, and professional reporting. Interested in learning more about Visible?

Watch a recorded conversation with VC Ops experts about improving post-investment operations at your VC firm. Collectively Kristen Ostro from Strut Consulting & Let’s Talk Ops and Lacey Behrens from 01 Advisors have been exposed to operations at dozens of top-tier VC’s. We’ve invited them to share their advice about implementing best-in-class operations at a venture firm. This webinar is designed for anyone looking to improve operations at their Venture Capital firm. Topics Discussed: Tips for working with your fund admin How Lacey runs Portfolio Review Meetings at 01 Advisors How to tailor onboarding for portfolio companies Tools that help improve post-investment operations How to measure whether operational changes are working or not Advice for first-time platform or VC operations hires

What is a Portfolio Review Meeting in Venture Capital A portfolio review meeting in the context of Venture Capital is a dedicated time for the investment and operational team members at an investment firm to align on recent updates across the portfolio. Other purposes of this meeting are to exchange cross-functional insights and coordinate the best ways to support portfolio companies. Who typically leads Portfolio Review Meetings? Portfolio review meetings can be led by anyone at the firm but since the meetings are largely focused on updates about portfolio companies, it is often led by the person responsible for collecting and synthesizing updates from portfolio companies on a regular basis. At a smaller firm, this person may be a Partner, and at a larger VC firm, this person often has the title of Platform Manager, Director of Portfolio Operations, or someone in finance. Ultimately, it should be led by someone with a wide-lens view of what is going on across the portfolio. Related Resource –> Portfolio Data Collection Tips for VCs Portfolio Review Meeting Frequency According to a poll led by Visible, 50% of VC’s are hosting Portfolio Review Meetings on a quarterly basis, followed by 29% weekly, and 14% monthly. The frequency of this meeting largely depends on the size of your portfolio company and how hands-on you are with your companies. A quarterly frequency makes sense for most VC firms because 70% of investors are collecting structured data from their companies on a quarterly basis. (Source data is aggregated usage data on Visible’s portfolio monitoring platform used by 350+ VC funds). Three Necessary Elements to Lead an Effective Portfolio Review Meeting 1) Up-to-date, accurate information from portfolio companies Most investors are collecting 5-15 metrics from companies on a quarterly basis. These include core financial KPI’s and sector-specific metrics. Additionally, it’s common to ask for qualitative updates from companies as well to ensure you have a holistic view of how a company is performing. Related Resource –> Which Metrics Should I be Collecting from My Portfolio Companies 2) Customizable visualizations to engage your team Looking at just raw data points from companies can be, well…boring. To get more engagement during Portfolio Review Meetings it’s a great idea to create engaging visualizations that clearly demonstrate the growth journeys your companies are on. By displaying your data in a Flexible Portfolio Company Dashboard your team will be able to more clearly identify trends and insights. To help your team digest the information about portfolio companies, it’s important to keep your data visualizations consistent for each company. Visible makes this easy by allowing you to save custom dashboards as templates and apply them to all companies in just a few clicks. Learn more about creating flexible dashboards for portfolio review meetings in the video below. 3) A Place to Take Notes & Document Action Items It’s a great idea to document meeting discussion notes and action items as soon as they arise during a meeting. Documenting action items on a company’s dashboard is a great way to keep team members accountable for execution because you can refer back to the notes during future meetings. How Investors Are Leveraging Visible to Enhance Portfolio Review Meetings VKAV’s Portfolio Company Dashboards Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV), a long-term Visible user, hosts a formal Portfolio Review Meeting on a quarterly basis. During this meeting, Portfolio Review Committee members join to review the performance of the portfolio companies during the quarter. Additionally, VKAV’s investment team holds an internal Portfolio Review Meeting every other week. Right now, the purpose of this meeting is mostly to check the status of action items (either for VKAV or the portfolio company). VKAV keeps track of open action items directly on a company’s dashboard in Visible so that it is linked to the broader context of how the company is performing. View VKAV’s Portfolio Review Dashboard Example –> View Dashboard 01 Advisors Approach to Portfolio Review Meetings 01 Advisors a San Francisco-based venture firm utilizes Visible’s Request feature to streamline the way they collect data from companies on a quarterly basis. The team meets 1-2 times per quarter for an internal Portfolio Review meeting. Check out their meeting agenda outline below. 01 Advisors Portfolio Review Meeting Agenda Investment Strategy Portfolio Company Categorization Reserve Allocation Strategy Portfolio Company Support Learn more about how 01 Advisors uses Visible for the internal portfolio review meetings in this video.

Raise capital, update investors and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days. Building a startup is a journey. Over the course of your journey, chances are the thought of liquidity events will creep into your mind. Understanding liquidity events and having a game plan when your startup is close to an event can help speed up the process. Related Resource: A Quick Overview on VC Fund Structure To learn more about liquidity events and how to prepare your startup for one, check out our post below: What is a liquidity event? As put by the team at Corporate Finance Institute, “A liquidity event is a process by which an investor liquidates their investment position in a private company and exchanges it for cash. The main purpose of a liquidity event is the transfer of an illiquid asset (an investment in a private company) into the most liquid asset – cash.” Depending on the type of event and makeup of your business will dictate the small details of your liquidity event. Learn more about specific types of liquidity events below: Types of liquidity events Liquidity events can come in different shapes and sizes. Understanding the different outcomes will help you game plan and prepare your business for the proper event. Going public An initial public offering (IPO) or going public is the typically startup ending in Hollywood. As put by the SEC, “Going public typically refers to when a company undertakes its initial public offering, or IPO, by selling shares of stock to the public, usually to raise additional capital. Going public is a significant step for any company and you should consider the reasons companies decide to go public. After its IPO, the company will be subject to public reporting requirements.” Getting acquired Getting acquired is also a potential liquidity event for startups. For many founders, this is typically the most thought-through process. As put by the team at Investopedia, “An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company’s shares to gain control of that company. Purchasing more than 50% of a target firm’s stock and other assets allows the acquirer to make decisions about the newly acquired assets without the approval of the company’s other shareholders.” As an acquisition is ultimately selling your business, you need to understand the motivators for companies making acquisitions. For example, companies might be motivated by a few of the following reasons: Enter New Markets — Companies making acquisitions might be interesting in operating in a new geographic or vertical market. Growth — Companies making acquisitions might want to use your product or service as a growth strategy for their current business. New Technology — Companies making acquisitions might want to lean into your technology instead of building it in-house. Remove Competition — Companies making acquisitions might want to reduce their competition. Secondary market transactions As put by Investopedia, “The secondary market is where investors buy and sell securities they already own. It is what most people typically think of as the “stock market,” though stocks are also sold on the primary market when they are first issued.” Over the past few years, secondary markets specific to startups and private help companies have begun to find their way into the marketplace. Realistic timeline for liquidity events Putting a timeline on a liquidity event is difficult and will greatly vary from business to business. Depending on your business, the type of liquidity event, and current market conditions will impact the timeline. Related Resource: Calculating Your Quick Ratio First things first, you need to have a product or service that is attractive to the public markets, a company, or a secondary market. The next steps will greatly vary depending on the market and the liquidity event type. For example, going public can take years with the legal requirements and work. On the flip side, an acquisition can move quickly if the company is motivated and dedicated to moving quickly. Learn more about preparing for a liquidity event below: Tips for startups close to a liquidity event If a liquidity event is on the horizon, check out a few of our tips to prepare below: 1. Look at the liquidation preferences As put by the team at Investopedia, “A liquidation preference is a clause in a contract that dictates the payout order in case of a corporate liquidation. Typically, the company’s investors or preferred stockholders get their money back first, ahead of other kinds of stockholders or debtholders, in the event that the company must be liquidated.” Related Resource: Current Ratio and Liquidity Ratio Checking out the contract to understand the liquidation preferences is a must to make sure you can properly communicate this with your board members and stakeholders. 2. Understand and look for a clawback clause As put by the team at Paycor, “A clawback clause is a provision within a business or employment contract that allows—under a prescribed set of circumstances—an organization to reclaim incentive or bonus funds previously paid to an employee.” This is particularly important when looking at different bonus and payout structures. For example, if you had a goal to grow 10% over the next year and initially reported 13%, you’d get your payout. However, after an audit you found the actual growth rate to be 9%, you may have to pay back your bonus. 3. Consider tax implications Each liquidity event will come with its own set of tax implications and legal requirements. As always, we recommend consulting with a lawyer and financial team when evaluating your different tax implications. Related Resource: A User-Friendly Guide to Startup Accounting 4. Know the pros and cons of each liquidity event Of course, each liquidity event comes with its own set of pros and cons. Check out a few examples below: Going public Pros: Raising capital Exposure from the public listing Allow individuals to exit Cons: Added disclosure for public investors Increased rules and regulations Getting acquired Pros: Access to capital Additional resources Allows individuals to exit Cons: Operational confusion Impact on current team members Connect with investors today with Visible Building relationships with your current and potential investors will allow you to move quickly when it comes time for a liquidity event. Keeping your investors in the loop will allow them to lend a hand when it comes to strategy, introductions, and more. Raise capital, update investors, and engage your team from a single platform. Try Visible free for 14 days.

Today we’re celebrating National Women’s Day in the U.S. and so it seems fitting to share some research that highlights the power of women working in Venture Capital. A recent study in Harvard Business Review demonstrates that VC firms that increased the number of female partners by 10% experienced a 1.5% increase in fund returns each year and had 9.7% more profitable exits. This is a significant improvement considering only ~29% of VC investments have a profitable exit. Given this data, it’s shocking that women make up just 8% of the VC industry to date. Thankfully, groups like Women in VC, Allraise, and Recast Capital are working to change this. Keep reading for tips to measure and improve gender equity across your portfolio. 1) Use Formulas to calculate % Female Employees Most firms are already collecting the metric ‘Total Headcount’ from their portfolio companies. Consider collecting ‘Number of Female Employees’ on a quarterly or annual basis and using formulas to calculate ‘% Female Employees’ across your portfolio. 2) Set up a Portfolio metric dashboard to benchmark gender equity across your portfolio In a few clicks, Portfolio metric dashboards tell you the total, minimum, maximum, and median values for any metric and also let you benchmark companies against portfolio quartiles. Learn more. 3) Create a ‘Female (co)founded’ segment to keep track of gender diversity across your deals You can set up any custom segment in Visible and use them to slice and filter your data. Ready to explore using Visible to measure gender equity across your portfolio? Meet with Visible More Resources on Women in VC: The Rise of Women-Led VC Firms (+ a List to Keep an Eye on) The Other Diversity Dividend How the VC Pitch Process is Failing Female Entrepreneurs The “Daughter Effect” in VC

VC Head of Platform shares advice on how to plan a founder-focused CEO summit. About Stephanie Rich Stephanie Rich is Head of Platform at Bread and Butter Ventures where she builds scalable networks, resources, tools and knowledge that help their portfolio companies succeed. She spends time working in the Twin Cities startup ecosystem and mentoring founders building in food/ag tech, digital health and enterprise saas. Before working in VC, she gained experience in early-stage marketing and building brands and communities. And she love dogs. You can find Stephanie on LinkedIn and Twitter. Why does your VC firm host CEO Summits and how many have you done? Stephanie: We did our first official Summit in the summer of 2023. We invest all over the country (actually the world!) so we wanted to host a Founders Summit to bring our portfolio together to build connections between founders as well as to meet our network in MN. Our goal for the event was to have everyone leave feeling inspired, motivated and armed with something new -whether a new contact, new resource or new skillset. Is there anything you wish you’d known/realized before your first CEO Summit? Stephanie: I wish I’d thought (and perhaps tested) the space we used a bit more. I’d recommend really thinking about how you’ll utilized Summit locations for big presentations, workshops but also for small moments for founders to connect in small groups. The space was still great, but I think it would have been even better if we’d approached it more thoughtfully. If you had to go back in time and try and convince your investment team to allocate a budget for a CEO summit, what points would you use? Stephanie: I’d focus on the benefits that our founders would get out of summit – connection, inspiration and motivation. Zoom is great but there’s something about getting people together in person that solidifies founder to founder and investor to founder relationships. Check out Visible’s Guide to Portfolio Support Best Practices Download the Guide What costs of a CEO Summit are typically covered by the firm vs founders? Stephanie: Depends primarily on two things – size of the firm and amount of sponsorship dollars raised. At the least, firms should plan to cover all activities and food throughout the event – if you have the budget for it we recommend covering (or at least subsidizing) accommodations and travel. What’s something you’ve tried at a summit that you’d never do again? Stephanie: We did basically all of the planning and prep in-house – it was fun but a ton of lift from our team. Next time I will probably work harder to figure out what different things we could partner on or hire someone to handle – especially when it comes to design and audio-visual skills. What’s something you’ve tried that you’ll make sure to always do in the future? Stephanie: We did a great session where we had one founder briefly interview another in front of the whole group – and we repeated this about 10 times. I was blown away by the amount of research founders did to prep for this – they asked each other insightful, thoughtful questions that really led to all attendees a great window into what each person is building, the journey they’ve taken, and the things they think about every day while running the company. It proved to be super inspirational and led to lots of connections afterward. Any tips to maximize the budget/value add ratio for coordinating a CEO Summit? Stephanie: Spend money on your high-value things – speakers, major dinners/experiences, location – and find ways to deliver on the details in a more budget conscious way. Also be creative when it comes to the city you host in. While there are certainly advantages to hosting in hot spots like San Francisco, New York or Miami, you can save a ton of budget by holding your summit in a city like Minneapolis where buying our restaurants, securing venues and paying for activities requires significantly less investment. Is it worth attempting a virtual summit these days or do you think it needs to be in person? Stephanie: Part of me completely understands the desire for a virtual summit – it’s so much more cost efficient but keep in mind you’re really missing out on the in-person connection and inspiration that make in-person summits so magical. I’d also say a virtual summit is only worth it with extremely stellar and useful content. Make sure you’re giving people a real reason to show up and be very cognizant of the length of event. Visible is founder-friendly portfolio monitoring and reporting for investors. Learn More

For a bonus episode of the Founders Forward Podcast, we are joined by Mike Evans. Mike is the founder of GrubHub and the current CEO of Fixer — Fixer provides skilled experts, solving a variety of home problems in one visit. About Mike Evans Mike shares the ins and outs of his time building GrubHub — from humble beginnings in his Chicago apartment to the IPO 10+ years later. We cover everything from the difference between quitting and giving up, to building a valuable board, to raising capital, and more. Our CEO, Mike Preuss, had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Mike Evans. You can give the full episode a listen below: What you can expect to learn from Mike Evans: The difference between quitting and giving up Why Mike doesn’t like NPS as a metric How a board can be valuable How to build a list of potential investors Why cash doesn’t fix problems How to turn problems into resolutions Related Resources: Hangry: A Startup Journey Mike Evan’s personal website Building Your Ideal Investor Persona

As we invest in rapidly changing technologies that impact people and the planet, it’s of the utmost importance to consider the unintended consequences—even at the early stage. As the world felt the effects of several major crises in recent times, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles have rightfully risen to the spotlight in the venture capital industry and now play a critical role in investment decision-making. Investors hold a responsibility to guide their portfolio companies in ESG practices, not just because the world is watching—but because companies that are as concerned with their impact as they are with building their products are proven to perform better in the long run. Visible recently hosted an ESG for Venture Capital webinar with Tracy Barba, Head of ESG at 500 Startups and Director at ESG4VC, where she answered the common questions about establishing ESG reporting practices at VC firms. We’ve shared answers to some of those questions below as well as guidance on using Visible for ESG portfolio monitoring. What is ESG for Venture Capital? ESG policies and practices help investors and companies manage their environmental, social, and governance risk and identify opportunities for value creation. VCs—including 500 Startups—are widely embracing the shift. In the 2020 ESG Annual Report spearheaded by Tracy Barba, 500 Startups said their policies include: Environmental criteria to examine how a company performs as a steward of nature. Social criteria to consider a company’s relationship with its employees, suppliers, customers, and communities where it operates. Governance criteria to review a company’s leadership, shareholder rights, executive pay, audits, and internal controls. VC firms can and should provide an ESG framework as startup companies grow. It’s never too early to care—as we’ve seen in the news, large tech companies have found themselves in legal and ethical trouble over issues that could have been resolved in the earlier stages. In How Venture Capital Can Join the ESG Revolution, Stanford’s Social Innovation Review pointed out that eventually, ESG should not be understood as an “add-on” but a core value in a VC leading to better investments and companies. Ethical and legal considerations should not be ignored in the service of achieving rapid growth and swift time to market. As a VC firm, there is a risk in your ownership percentage if a portfolio company were to face legal battles, public scrutiny, and other risks that could have been prevented if they were identified earlier. ESG as a term is often used interchangeably with impact investing. As Tracy Barba points out, impact investing is thinking about the end goal and the impact of the companies you’re investing in. Having a strategy around water or climate is an example of an impact strategy, so you’re filtering deals based on that. ESG is a screening for every company, regardless of the type, measuring their environmental, social, and governance criteria. It’s hard for an early-stage company to know their impact, such as environmental waste, if they don’t have a product yet. That’s why it’s important to map ESG to relevant stages of a company’s development. At an early stage, the goal is to start to have a conversation. It’s much easier to think about how a company affects the environment from the beginning and address any issues upfront rather than fix or replace already-established processes in the future. At later stages, more detailed discussions will be appropriate. Founders overwhelmingly do care and want to consider ESG, but many don’t know when or how to get started. As an investor, you can help them start to think through ESG by adding it as an agenda item on your monthly or quarterly check-ins. An example question is: “Are you tracking your carbon footprint?” Their answer might simply be “Yes”, or it might be, “No we aren’t, but we’d like to. How can we get started?” Why is ESG Becoming More Common in Venture Capital? There is a growing understanding that ESG policies help with customer loyalty, retaining talent, and attracting more investors. It’s beneficial if a company directs time and energy towards making sure they’re operating responsibly. In venture capital, some topics are gaining momentum: Diversity – there are demonstrated benefits to having culturally diverse teams and boards. Gender equality – supporting more women and as founders and funders. Data protection & privacy of users – startups are not exempt from laws such as the GDPR and CCPA which protect the personal data privacy of consumers. Environmental impact trends – caring about carbon emissions, ethical sourcing of materials, waste management, etc. It’s important to be mindful of regulations and how they can change over time. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) in Europe aims to prevent greenwashing and to increase transparency around sustainability claims (source: Eurosif). While the SEC currently only recommends ESG disclosure, it may also create firm rules in the future. Companies may start measuring and reporting their ESG progress in preparation for new regulations. More than ever, founders care about being backed by VCs they align with. VCs can drive a positive shift by integrating ESG into their own operations. Showing that you care as an investor is integral in instilling ESG policies into your portfolio. How To Monitor ESG Metrics Across your VC Portfolio You can start tracking ESG metrics across your portfolio by sending them an annual questionnaire. 500 Startups, for example, collects their founder diversity info on a quarterly basis, measuring their progress over time and benchmarking to the VC industry. Founders already get asked for a lot of information, so to encourage their participation in your ESG questionnaires, ask fewer questions and use simple yes/no answers whenever possible. With Visible, you can fully customize your ESG reporting questions using Requests. Preview of an ESG Request in Visible below — View Examples of ESG Monitoring Requests in Visible. You can track answers and hold founders accountable for how they are going to implement best practices, how they are going to hire, etc. ESG questionnaires are not meant to penalize startups, but to get a sense of where they currently are—they may only just be starting to think about tracking and monitoring their water usage or diversity, for example. Once they gain customers, the questions you ask them will grow more detailed. If an early-stage company feels they do not have the resources or bandwidth to manage ESG concerns, you can help them get started by simply putting an employee manual or non-discrimination policy on the agenda for your next check-in. Remember, it’s going to be more expensive if they wait longer to implement those practices. Tips for ESG Fund Reporting External consultants can help VC firms evaluate their policies and processes across recruitment, HR, and deal flow, and recommend ways to improve. Since external consultants collect data across venture capital firms, they can educate them about best practices and compare how they are doing relative to the entire industry. Tracy Barba, Head of ESG at 500 Startups, reported that working with external consultants like Diversity VC was helpful in providing them with an external validation point. This type of industry benchmarking is now growing as a field and becoming more common practice. Resource: How to increase Diversity at your VC Fund How to Incorporate ESG Into Your Portfolio Support Now that you’ve gathered ESG data from your portfolio companies and identified opportunities for improvement, what’s next? VC firms can take the initiative to provide education, tools, training, and resources for their companies—whether in-house or through outside service providers and consultants. 500 Startups provides a vast array of ESG resources for their founders and the public, including webinars, which are available on their website: ESG for Early-Stage. Resource: Portfolio Support Best Practices for Venture Capital Investors Tracy Barba’s nonprofit ESG4VC aims to provide education, office hours, and research for venture capital firms to help establish standards and encourage movement in a positive direction across the industry. It’s been said that we can’t fix what we can’t measure. When it comes to improving the impact business has on the environment, workers, and communities, investors can be proactive in incorporating ESG policies at the very early stages so that everyone can benefit. View Examples of ESG Monitoring Requests in Visible.

Building a startup is difficult. For most founders, it is their first time starting and building a business. However, there is not academy or university a first-time founder can lean on the learn the ways. The best way to learn as a founder is by doing. But founders need to turn to their peers, investors, stakeholders, and resources along the way to help hone their skills and build their company. Related Resource: Business Startup Advice: 15 Helpful Tips for Startup Growth Learn more about the best startup resources for founders below: What are startup resources? As we mentioned earlier, building a startup is difficult. Leveraging the existing resources around is a surefire way to hone your founder skills on the fly. Instead of having to build and learn things in-house, founders can lean on the apps, leaders, and tools around them to build their businesses. Related Resource: Top SaaS Products for Startups Learn about the resources and tools available to startup founders below: 1. Accounting and finance At the core of any business are the financials and data surrounding it. To help with accounting and finance, founders can lean on different software to help automate and improve accounting efforts. In addition to software and tools, there are countless accounting and finance firms geared specifically towards startups. Learn more about popular startup accounting firms below: Related Resource: A User-Friendly Guide to Startup Accounting Accounting software Chances are, most founders do not have the skill set to maintain their startup books. In addition to the skill, it is also time-consuming. Thankfully, there are countless accounting tools that startups can use to stay on top of their financials. Check out a few popular accounting software options below: Xero QuickBooks Online Freshbooks Invoicing software Like accounting, invoicing is a critical part of startup financials. Leveraging software to collect invoices is a surefire way for everyone involved to save time. As most startups use invoicing software, the options are generally robust and can handle any customizations for your business. Check out a few popular options below: Zoho Stripe Square Related Resource: Important Startup Financials to Win Investors 2. Domain and website tools For most modern-day startups, a website is table stakes. As more commerce takes place online, having a modern website can separate you from the field. Of course, most founders don’t have the domain and website knowledge to build a website from scratch. However, there are hundreds of tools to help founders manage their domain and build a website with limited design and coding knowledge. Check out a few of the most popular website tools below: WordPress Webflow GoDaddy Google Domains Related resource: 20 Best SaaS Tools for Startups 3. Marketing and content management Going hand in hand with a modern website is a modern approach to marketing. Currently, most startups are running some form of content and marketing playbook – no matter how big or small. For most startups, this looks like regular email communication, occasional blogs, and a presence on social media. In order to help teams stay on top of their content and marketing efforts, there are hundreds of dedicated tools. Learn more below: Analytics software As the old saying goes, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” As a baseline, startups that are investing in content should have some analytics in place to properly measure what is working. Most of these tools can be implemented with limited tech expertise and can be built out as your company scales. Check out a few popular analytics tools below: Google Analytics Google Search Console Amplitude Customer relationship management (CRM) software Another tool that most founders should invest in is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. CRMs are the lifeblood of productive sales and marketing teams and allow everyone to track conversations and pipeline data. CRMs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are dedicated to specific use cases while others cover everything from manual data entry to robust integrations and add-ons. Learn more about a few of the most popular CRMs below: HubSpot Salesforce Pipedrive Email marketing As we previously mentioned, email marketing has become an important aspect of how startups market and communicate with their customers. There are hundreds of email marketing tools that founders can leverage to build out their email marketing efforts. Check out a few of the popular email marketing tools below: Mailchimp HubSpot SendGrid Social media management At this point, it is expected that every business will have some sort of presence on social media. As the platforms continue to grow (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, etc.) staying on top of all of them can be a hassle. In order to help marketers stay on top of their social media efforts, there are countless tools to help. Check out a few of the most popular tools below: Hootsuite Buffer Sprout Social 4. Project management One of the differentiators of a startup is the fact that the team can iterate and move quickly. Whereas larger corporations have thousands of employees and guidelines, building products or new acquisition strategies can come with long delays. On the flip side, startups generally have smaller teams and the ability to push a new product or test new acquisition efforts overnight. In order to stay on top of these efforts, startups should consider implementing a project management tool to stay on top of their day-to-day projects. This can mean everything from bug fixes in products to full-fledged marketing campaigns. Check out a few of the most popular project management tools below: Asana Teamwork Monday Notion 5. Human resources management As startups grow, having the resources in place for employees is vital. Most startups don’t bring on a dedicated human resource manager until later in their company lifecycle. To save time and to make sure you are offering the resources your teammates need, consider a management tool to help. Check out a few of the most popular human resource management tools below: Gusto Bamboo HR Zenefits 6. Legal help Over the course of starting and building a business, founders will face legal aspects. Chances are most founders don’t have the legal chops to get through the basic practices needed throughout their businesses lifecycle it is important to have help with legal. This can come in the form of bringing on an outside law firm or leveraging tools and software to help with the legal aspects that come with building a business. 7. Investor relationship management For startups that have raised venture capital, having a plan in place to communicate and leverage their investors is a must. At Visible, we have found companies that regularly communicate with their investors are 300% more likely to raise follow on funding. Raising venture capital is a relationship-based game. In order to best your chances of raising capital, you need to build relationships and trust with potential investors. Chances are that potential investors will turn to your current investors for due diligence so it is important they give a glowing review. Additionally, investors can be a wealth of knowledge when it comes to hiring, strategy, and building product. Learn more below: Related Resource: The Complete Guide to Investor Reporting and Updates Related Resource: Top VCs Investing in the $100 Billion Creator Economy Related Resource: Advisory Shares Explained: Empowering Entrepreneurs and Investors Fund your startup with Visible Raising capital for your business is another skill founders need to hone. There are countless resources and tools to help founders raise capital too. Related Resources: All-Encompassing Startup Fundraising Guide Business Venture vs Startup: Key Similarities and Differences Find investors for your business, track your fundraising, share your pitch deck, and update investors all from one platform. Give Visible a free try for 14 days here.

By: Kayla Liederbach, Strut Consulting For today’s emerging manager, attracting the best founders and LPs to join on your quest is a critical piece of your fund journey. In order to do this successfully over the long-term, you must address the one thing so many others run from: Marketing. Yes, good old-fashioned getting the word out! While at the end of the day, word-of-mouth referrals will be the most valuable source of quality deal flow, there are some fundamental bases to be covered when it comes to raising your visibility in the venture capital ecosystem, whether through social media, creating blog content, or hosting events. Below is a quick crash course every emerging manager should take when thinking through their fund’s marketing strategy. 1. Codify your main goal(s) The first thing to ask yourself is: What are the fund’s primary goals? Every GP has a limited amount of bandwidth, and countless marketing efforts can be made. So before you race out to start recording a podcast, it’s important to think about tying your efforts to activities that are in line with your main business goal(s). These goals can (and probably will) change every year, sometimes even every quarter, and that’s why it’s important to stop and think through them carefully first. Examples of goals are: Closing your first fund, increasing the number of founder applications by 25%, helping your founders become visible to other investors, cultivating your founder community, and raising another fund. 2. Know your audience For the most part, your audience is going to be founders and LPs, both current and prospective. Secondary audiences include your community-at-large, the media, and the general public. You want to keep this in mind when deciding what types of content and resources to create and where to share them. LPs and founders are already bombarded with emails and cold outreaches, so GPs need to be thoughtful and intentional about their touch points. 3. Build your audience on social media I’m going to give away one of my biggest tips: Follow all of your portfolio companies on social media and set up news alerts for each, which will give you an endless stream of ideas to curate meaningful content. After all, isn’t it really all about the founders and highlighting their success? I recommend using Google Alerts, Feedly, Mention, or any other services that work best for you. You can find creative and thoughtful ways to connect yourself to their success story without being braggy. Also, be sure to make a Twitter list of your portfolio companies to see what they’re sharing that’s newsworthy and/or worth re-sharing. Here’s another tip: Share a mix of your own news and content as well as top-level industry content from others. Think of social media as a cocktail party rather than a sales pitch. No one wants to hang out with that person who only talks about themselves all night. Elevating others almost certainly guarantees positive reverberations. Some other quick social media tips: Share a variety of media when you can, including photos and videos, in the main part of your post to increase engagement on the algorithm. Links are certainly interesting and relevant, but contained media posts on platforms like LinkedIn actually perform better because they increase dwell time (meaning, LinkedIn wants people to stay on LinkedIn). Create public Twitter lists to engage with your portfolio companies and private Twitter lists to engage with writers and other influencers. 4. Start posting thoughtful blog content If you’re investing in early-stage companies, one way to help boost their visibility is to write a blog post when you invest in them or when they have a newsworthy moment. This not only elevates the founder(s) and the company in a meaningful way but also serves as a topic of interest to share on your social media! As a general rule, you should be sharing your blog posts at least two to three times on both Twitter and LinkedIn. Aim to say something unique or different each time you share, such as (1) using the title of the article in the first post, (2) highlighting a great quote from the article in the second post, and (3) sharing a quick but thoughtful summary or insight in the third post. Some solid ideas for blog posts are: Company profiles (this can be written by anyone on the team). A post about why you invested that’s written by you (obviously!). A founder’s background story, which requires an interview with the founder or founding team. 5. Keep people engaged Now that you’re churning out awesome content and tracking portfolio news to share on social media, you can start recapping highlights from the past month or quarter and curating it into a quality newsletter. Creating a newsletter is also the perfect way to let your community-at-large know what types of startups you’re looking to invest in, which in turn helps to drive referrals. If you’re able to segment your newsletter into one that’s founder-focused, one that’s LP-focused, and one for a more general audience and customize content accordingly, that’s even better! Doing so allows you to create a current and clear call to action for each segment to increase engagement. Events are a tested and true way to further engage your community. Especially after enduring the last two years, meeting in person for things like intimate founder dinners to larger summits is more compelling than ever before. However, you can also leverage the virtual power of webinars as a way to connect with founders throughout the year. Bringing in experts who can teach about topics that matter to founders most—like fundraising, PR, sales, marketing, and people ops—is a powerful way to capture their attention while allowing them to learn and also engage with their peers. Final note: Don’t forget about the power of internal comms. I know I’ve talked a lot about external-facing marketing initiatives that can raise your fund’s visibility to the outside world. But keeping your own community of founders, LPs, and your employees informed and engaged through internal comms is what’s going to help your firm’s brand stand the test of time. Never forget that helping your founders as much as possible—especially while their budget for in-house marketing talent might be tight to nonexistent—is what’s going to lead to future (valuable) referrals to other founders. And, if your founders love you and are grateful for your support, they might just mention you to the media when they have major news of their own. We all love a good shoutout, am I right? 🙂 Kayla Liederbach is the Communications & Marketing Manager at Strut, a venture capital consulting firm providing operations, marketing, and people ops expertise to funds of all shapes and sizes. If you would like help with your firm’s marketing and communications strategy, get in touch at ops@strutconsulting.com. Three ways Visible can help VCs with their Fund Marketing: Create a custom branded Investor Update Template for our Template Library. Get in touch with us at Matt@Visible.vc if you’re interested Create or update your Fund profile on our Connect Investor Database. This is an investor database used by 3,000+ founders. Get featured in one of our Investor Spotlight List Articles. Get in touch with us at Angelina@visible.vc if you’re interested.