FounderPartners

What is FounderPartners?

FounderPartners is a startup studio and venture capital firm based in San Mateo, California. They specialize in investing in and scaling businesses primarily within the software and technology sectors.

With a focus on capital-efficient and customer-delighting software, internet, mobile, and API services, as well as blockchain, A.I., big data, web security, analytics, cloud services, and infrastructure, their expertise spans across crucial domains in the tech landscape. They purposefully steer clear of hardware, biotech, and capital-intensive businesses.

Offering an investment range from $50,000 to $1,000,000, with a sweet spot of $250,000, FounderPartners actively engages in stages from pre-seed to Series B. As a startup studio, they not only provide capital but also give operational support, leveraging their team's experience as former company founders and CEOs who have grown businesses to significant scales.

They pride themselves on a proven track record of success, including an over 85% success rate at building companies, which far exceeds the industry average. FounderPartners emphasizes their principal investment approach, utilizing their own capital to align interests closely with the businesses they partner with. Global in their perspective yet strong in their Silicon Valley roots, they seek to connect technical talent internationally with their business acumen and Silicon Valley ecosystem, offering strategic exits and M&A advisory with significant transaction experience.

Aimed at technical founders around the world, they position themselves as minority co-founders, deeply involved in the growth process and dedicated to increasing the success rate of the ventures they support.

What they say:

FounderPartners is not a VC -- we invest our own money which better aligns ourselves with fellow founders. We're not an accelerator that teaches you how to raise money -- we teach you how to build a business.We're successful serial entrepreneurs who partner with, invest in, and help technical founders build and exit their companies. We have a stellar track record -- an 85% success rate (25 companies, 13 exits, only 4 failures). Most of our companies are scrappy bootstrapped companies or "Mustangs" that exit in the $25-100m range. We have had some nice unicorn exits like Roblox in which we were the first money invested.

What we look for: We invest in global technical founders. We target capital-efficient businesses in software, digital media, APIs, and blockchain. Our center of gravity is in Silicon Valley but our team is global and we partner with companies from all over the world.

How we help: FounderPartners works with technical founders as minority co-founders, providing hands-on operational support to help companies scale faster and reach profitability.