H/L Ventures

What is H/L Ventures?

Hatzimemos/Libby (H/L Ventures) operates under the vision that mission-driven founders can build inspiring and valuable companies, from inception to exit. Founded in 2009, they focus on aligning high returns with high impact.

Their diverse group of founders espouses this ethos, aiming to create companies that solve real problems for real people. H/L Ventures is not just about financial investment; they have a venture studio model that provides daily active engagement, expertise, access, and capital throughout an entrepreneur's journey, signifying their commitment to hands-on support.

Their thesis reflects a belief in sustainable companies and diverse founding teams, which are seen as integral to successful investments.

They champion diversity in tech, incorporating multiple underrepresented groups, recognizing the additional challenges these groups face in obtaining funding and resources. Their approach is exemplified by a 100% rate of investing in High Impact companies and a significant portion of their investments go to ventures with diverse founding teams.

H/L Ventures' structure is considered atypical to traditional venture capital models. Instead, they challenge the status quo by offering more than money, focusing on the core problems that early-stage entrepreneurs face – problems that are consistent across sectors and often experienced for the first time by even the most talented entrepreneurs. They don't believe every successful company needs to be a unicorn, instead providing tailored support to increase the chances of success for their founders.

Their company-building ecosystem includes the H/L Studio for pre-Series A companies and CityRock Ventures for Series A and later stages. Their investment interests cover a broad spectrum of industries including the Future of Work, Impact, and Mobile, with specialties in Series B, Series A, and Seed investments.

H/L Ventures invests a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $5,000,000, with their investment sweet spot at approximately $1,500,000.

What they say:

We invest in US-based start-up companies building at the nexus of impact, growth, and diversity. Within our company-building ecosystem, we have H/L Studio (https://h-l.vc/hl-studio/), which works with businesses from inception through pre-Series A; and CityRock Ventures (https://h-l.vc/cityrock-ventures/), which makes Series A & B investments.H/L Ventures’ involvement with our portfolio companies is as hands-on and supportive as possible throughout the entrepreneurship journey. This is the hallmark of H/L’s approach: we hold ourselves to a standard of virtually daily contact with every company in our portfolio, on an open-ended basis. This is not the empty promise of a website value-added page, but the core of our investment thesis. We host weekly calls with our senior portfolio team and each team of founders, which leads to daily activities involving our staff, Venture Partners, EPIRs, advisors, and network of service providers. All of this is in a supportive mode, meant to ensure that whatever needs our portfolio companies have, we remain actively relevant and helpful, every day. This care is given to all portfolio companies, regardless of which H/L Ventures vehicle is engaged.