DISQUS

andyswan · 1 month ago

Great idea and a natural evolution of the normal "successful entrepreneur becomes investor/entrepreneur/mentor" reality.

Side note: This sounds more like an extraordinarily capitalist creation (with a rather normal partnership/shareholder agreement) than anything "collective" or "socialist"....unless the portfolio companies that fail will also benefit from the profits achieved by those that succeed....

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Yeah, the socialist mention is slightly tongue in cheek since we are all capitalists through and through. That said, we do think our p2p model is unusual and something we believe in.

In true capitalist style, people only get paid from profits.

andyswan · 1 month ago

I like it! I'll be in NYC next week and would love to buy you a bourbon....and discuss if this is a model you think could/should be replicated in other cities....Louisville for example. email me if you're up for it.

Mark Essel · 1 month ago

Go Andy! Shake things up and spread the entrepreneurial aligned investor mojo.

andyswan · 1 month ago

Mark I couldn't stop if I tried!  Thanks.

David Semeria · 1 month ago

What do you expect your normal investment size to be?

Will you be doing follow-on rounds (if small)?

chris dixon · 1 month ago

We'll do anything from $50K up toward $1M. Follow ons - not our business but probably will in rare cases, e.g. "defensively" (when VC's do a pay to play round etc).

EricFriedman · 1 month ago

Congratulations on the announcement

kirklove · 1 month ago

Very cool. The embodiment of putting your money where your mouth is. Wish all of you all the success in the world. Congrats!

gavinbaker · 1 month ago

Congrats! Looking forward to see how you guys are able to execute the paradigm shift - best of luck.

tomkrieglstein · 1 month ago

Curious - is the $40mil coming from the founders, or somewhere else?

chris dixon · 1 month ago

big chunk from founders but not all...

andrewhyde · 1 month ago

This looks fantastic! Well done on the launch.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

thx!

Ben Siscovick · 1 month ago

This is awesome. A great addition to the NYC (and bean-town) early stage venture community. Congrats!

chrissheehan · 1 month ago

Knowing Eric and David, this is tremendous. CommonAngels is a firm believer in the mentorship and smaller fund model - its what we do everyday. Looking forward to working with you guys.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

likewise!

Skip Howard · 1 month ago

Great Concept: peer-to-peer venture capital. I wish you guys the best. You should think about a place online to have people apply to join you and people to submit thier businesses. Are you geographically limited? Thanks.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

We favor the East Coast of the US, but will invest anywhere.

Ivan Kirigin · 1 month ago

Excellent news!

Mark MacLeod · 1 month ago

Nice! I work closely with a similarly minded fund up here in Montreal - Montreal Startup. Wish you guys good luck!

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Cool - will check them out. One of the nice thing about small funds is we can partner with each other.

Joseph Turian · 1 month ago

A partnership with Montreal Startup would be great.
It's especially sensible for companies that want to have an R&D arm in Montreal. (Quebecois tax credits for scientific research are very favorable.)

higgs · 1 month ago

Very cool, congrats!

jaredhecht · 1 month ago

Congrats. Looking forward to see what you guys do.

Mark Geller · 1 month ago

Chris, Congrats on the launch! This is a great idea whose time has come. Looking forward to the L.A./west coast opening.

awaldstein · 1 month ago

I like it. New way of funding for new ways of doing business. I look forward to finding out more.
Congrats...a timely move.

reecepacheco · 1 month ago

This is tremendous. Really excited to see this take off. Congrats to you and the rest of the FC team.

I particularly enjoy the principles you've laid out, giving FC focus and vision from the start to which any entrepreneur can relate.

Kevin Ambrosini · 1 month ago

Great news for the nyc venture community. Congrats on getting it launched Chris.

Spencer Fry · 1 month ago

Congrats, Chris. Looking forward to hearing about your investments.

Andre Charoo · 1 month ago

This is awesome. A firm that truly sounds like it's all about the entrepreneur. Very cool!

Mark Gerson is a great guy! I look forward to being in touch with you guys.

petekazanjy · 1 month ago

I love this line from #4: "We try really hard not to be like that."

Not "We promise not to do that." or "We have a zero tolerance for that."

Chris' #4 is probably a lot more honest than either of those...because let's be honest...we've all had those days ; )

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Yeah, it just depends on whether its the occasional bad day or your general attitude. :)

petekazanjy · 1 month ago

Indeed. And I suppose the difference between those two options gets sorted out on TheFunded.

OurielOhayon · 1 month ago

congrats! happy to see that happening!

Mark Essel · 1 month ago

Sounds fantastic Chris. If any of your collective finds some time free, I'd appreciate some sharp feed back on a "project" I'm working on with a few friends. We're in dire need of real feedback.

You can learn a little about it at my blog.

Seriously groovy idea, wish you and the group the best of luck kicking some venture butt.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Sure, I'll check it out.

Mark Essel · 1 month ago

We're in a state of "high flux" (read as dynamic pages). We're cleaning up the look, layout, and choices available to users (Tyler much more than me, as I'm ramping up my Ruby knowledge).

John Furrier · 1 month ago

Congrats I'm doing the same thing in Silicon Valley with my SiliconANGLE Labs where we are all founders working together all with existing startups or jobs. The only exception is that we don't have a fund.

Obviously I'm a fan of these new trust networks of peers. Kudos!

dherman76 · 1 month ago

Chris, congrats on the announcement. Much needed in this space.

bussgang · 1 month ago

Congrats to you and Eric and David! Looking forward to collaborating!

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Likewise, thanks, Jeff.

Ritu Raj · 1 month ago

Having raised substantial venture and angel capital separately for two different companies, I would love to see more operators running seed funds, operators who have the patience of guiding and mentoring the entrepreneurs. Basically help them not to make errors, which would be major mistakes looking back to the past in the future.

The other important thing is to broadcast clearly -- whats the current fancy of the angel/venture managers and the investment policy. Kind of straight, and not all over the map.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Sounds like we think alike. Are we not broadcasting clearly enough what we are interested in?

Andrew Korf · 1 month ago

I like collective - and your approach... can you tell us more about the types of start ups you are interested in currently?

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Anything with great people, early stage, and ideally involves info tech in some way.

dorothy_mcgivney · 1 month ago

I'm excited to see what the first investments are, and especially envious of whoever gets the invaluable mentoring that will come along with the capital. Congrats!

graysky · 1 month ago

Congrats! Think this fits a real need. (I enjoyed talking with Eric this summer who turned me on to your blog & I'm glad he did!)

drron · 1 month ago

I'm looking forward to seeing your team at NYC local events for entrepreneurs. I like what you're planning and the emphasis on "collective." As a supporter and participant in co-working and Open Source, I firmly believe we must all develop better approaches than what we have seen business do in the past.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

We go to a lot of NYC events! Let me know if there is a good one we are missing.

David Storrs · 1 month ago

Have you been to Hackers and Founders? Meeting number 6 just happened (http://anyvite.com/events/home/cmyqg0gwxx), so the next one will be next month. It's a great group, and apparently growing pretty steadily.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

I haven't but it looks interesting. Thanks for the link.

Justyn Howard · 1 month ago

Congrats! Glad to see more participants in this type of model. What is the target investment range and how many deals do you plan to write per quarter/year?

chris dixon · 1 month ago

deal size: $50k up toward $1M. No fixed number of deals per year.

gbattle · 1 month ago

Congratulations.

I'll be pitching you in 5 weeks.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Looking forward to it! :)

jason · 1 month ago

would love to get in touch -- your contact@foundercollective.com email is down...

chris dixon · 1 month ago

thx, just fixed.

mayanks · 1 month ago

Congratulations Chris. This is an awesome announcement. Hope you are able to nurture some good startups like the other new age venture firms have done.

>5) We’ll make investments anywhere in the world but tend to favor

Can I apply from India? :-)

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Sure, why not.

winterslove · 1 month ago

Fantastic! How do I apply?

winterslove · 1 month ago

also that email address listed seems to bounce!

treyh · 1 month ago

Sounds interesting.

How are you going to make connections with startups? Using the YC model or a more traditional VC approach?

Ankesh Kothari · 1 month ago

Congratulations!

Would love more details. (How to apply. What information would you need. What would the average investment amount be...)

Jeff Brunelle · 1 month ago

Congrats, Chris. The approach you're taking is one that I truly appreciate. Looking forward to following your investments.

stephenhjacobson · 1 month ago

Congrats. Is it possible to engage your entrepreneural services w/o investment. Funds have been raised-est. up to $10M; intellectual property in place. Start up leader, entrepreneur not yet identified. Assistance required to establish/ensure integrity and viability of model

stephenhjacobson · 1 month ago

Congrats. Is it possible to engage your entrepreneural services w/o investment. Funds have been raised-est. up to $10M; intellectual property in place. Start up leader, entrepreneur not yet identified. Assistance required to establish/ensure integrity and viability of model

DavidCohen · 1 month ago

Welcome to the party! Well done! Hope to work with you all on some stuff.

Elon Boms · 1 month ago

Chris,
Congrats on the announcement. Glad to have another seed stage fund in the game. Looking forward to co-investing on a number of deals with you guys in the future!

~ The LaunchCapital Team

Chrisarsenault · 1 month ago

Chris, good Luck. I see allot of value and promise in co-investing with entrepreneurial driven smaller funds beyond the cash: network, knowledge, affinities with the targeted market, experience, relationships and that "x-factor" that we also seek in entrepreneurs. Looking forward to collaborate on a few deals with you and your partners.

Chris Arsenault
iNovia Capital

Albert Wenger · 1 month ago

Score another one for New York! This is fantastic group of founders and a perfect match for the type of funding that is most needed. Congrats to all involved on the public launch.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Thanks Albert! Hope to work together!

jenmcfadden · 1 month ago

Hi,
Sounds great. I hope that you will look at New Haven as well. As one of the co-founders of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute (loosely modeled after Y Combinator), I've watched a number of great start-ups emerge in the area over the past couple of years. In addition to biotech, there are some pretty interesting web-based ventures that could benefit from this type of fund, including PaperG (http://www.paperg.com), YouRenew (http://www.yourenew.com), SeeClickFix (http://www.seeclickfix.com), and Dot Eco (http://doteco.info/).
There is a great start-up culture due to low costs, creative community, and access to world class talent at Yale. Worth a look.
Best,
Jennifer

chris dixon · 1 month ago

We are totally open to New Haven and agree there have been some interesting startups coming out of there lately.

daryn · 1 month ago

Congrats and good luck!

djdan85 · 1 month ago

A welcome addition for budding entrepreneurs in New York!

Laurent Rozenfeld · 1 month ago

Congratulations!
It's a great initiative I hope to see one day in Europe!

Laurent Rozenfeld · 1 month ago

bijan · 1 month ago

Congrats!

innonate · 1 month ago

A win for NYC. Love the experimentation.

Elie Seidman · 1 month ago

the damn socialists are taking over the world ;-) congrats and good luck!

Tyler Willis · 1 month ago

Chris, can you expand a bit on this: "we also have a unique structure where active entrepreneurs lead investments, work hard to help their investments succeed, and share in the profits when they do."

Sounds like the partner most in-line with the startup will take lead on the investment for FC and will receive a bigger piece of the pie then other fund partners for doing so. Do they take a board seat? Are there expectations around time? How will partners mitigate their busy life as founder interfering with their commitment to their partners and board?

It's an amazing group of people, I can't wait to follow you all more closely in the coming years.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

> Sounds like the partner most in-line with the startup will take lead on the investment for FC and will receive a bigger piece of the pie then other fund partners for doing so.

Yeah.

Board seat: sometimes, but not necessary. We are very flexible.

Justin Kan · 1 month ago

Looking forward to seeing what companies come out of this

William Carleton · 1 month ago

Chris, congratulations. The whole project sounds awesome, but the points that resonate with me the most are those you lay out at (1). Keeping smaller exits viable--that's where the ecosystem needs to go, at least in info tech. A decade ago, I co-founded a boutique firm whose mission was to do seed investments only, but I think the timing is even better now for such a concept (the firm I co-founded ended up going a different direction after the dot com implosion, but that's a longer story).

Boris M. Silver · 1 month ago

awesome to see entrepreneurs backing other entrepreneurs.

petermccarthy · 1 month ago

Excellent stuff, Chris.

I just wish we had something like this in the UK. Out of interest, if FC made an investment in a UK startup, how would this work in practice?

Johndmc · 1 month ago

Congratulations, sounds like a great addition to the NYC startup world.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Thanks!!

Charlotte Kim · 1 month ago

Wow! Just got back from SF where I was in the audience listening to a panel of Angel funds talking about how they were doing B AND C rounds in their current investments AND requiring preferred shares if they do take a new company-- HUH?! REALLY? Would love to talk to you guys!

Dave Blanchard · 1 month ago

Pretty cool Chris...congrats!

netjacobsson · 1 month ago

Really good idea. Wish you all the best. We need more initiatives like this. The era of the investpreneur has come

Coach Wei · 1 month ago

Chris - this is fantastic for Boston and NYC. We need more of this. In particular, the model is very interesting (by entrepreneurs who are in the trenches) vs the normal VC model (by ex-entrepreneurs who were successful but see the everything from the 1-2 successes years ago, MBAs who never built a company, or worse, bankers).

--Coach Wei

Kristine Maltrud · 1 month ago

Love what you're doing. P2P is changing the world, 1 P2P at a time. Also love that you're having a dialogue right here! We're not located in NYC, but having great conversations with artists and arts orgs there about P2P fundraising for artists/arts projects. Cheers!

ShanaC · 1 month ago

COngrdaultions.

Read the really Radical. Critical Art Ensemble...Tactical Media, Observations on Collective Cultural Action (You may plagiarize this document, you just have to tell them, they are, err, a step beyond creative commons)


http://www.critical-art.net/books/digital/tact4...

TC · 1 month ago

I am looking for mentors and investments for my new company (mobile market). What kind of information is needed for submition for application? Better yet, what I have to do to get 5 min of your time?

Brian Link · 1 month ago

Brilliant. This is absolutely fantastic. I will anxiously await an opportunity to come to NYC to meet with you guys.

alex · 1 month ago

yet another capitalist wolf in sheep's disguise:)

chris dixon · 1 month ago

we're pretty overtly capitalist actually.

mab · 1 month ago

no different than any other VC. they ignore entrepreneur's questions and request for information to their site's email. their site say "say hello, we're nice". they forgot to say "at long as you not serious about actually looking for help". Look at the post from Ankesh Kothari, his question still being ignore.

entrepreneurs don't bend over yet! they are just like any VC.
study the posted comments and you will realize this is just a PR spin for a wolf. not all VC are equal. many great company are started with the help of VC. At least they don't pretend to be a sheep.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Dude, I posted this on Monday. Today is Thursday. We got tons of
emails since then - far more than we could intelligently respond to.
The fact that we haven't responded to you in under 3 days makes us
"wolves"?

mab · 1 month ago

I am not Ankesh Kothari. I just use his post as example. Please don't take it personally. I am a straight shooter.

1. Your issue with overwhelming messages is a common problem with many companies. You can use auto response email to acknowledge receive of the message. Maybe you can add some feature (link) to allow sender to automatically track average time to response and their order in the queue. Better yet make it into a web service for other business to use as well. One example would be federal and local government agency which handles many requests in a given day. Anyone reading this, do run with the idea. I have a ton.

2. While it is easy to say you be different, proof it! suggestion, do an online youtube documentary for your vc with a entrepreneur. Start from reading the first executive summary to taking the company to success or failure. It will be like ABC shark tank but showing then how you do it different and how you can help with more than money.

3. I not an entrepreneur. I saw too many dreams destroy by investors. One investor trick me into signing my patent away. He was an angel investor. So I am now just give warning. I am here to kiss up, I here to share my view.

My apology if I insulted you in anyway.

mab · 1 month ago

one more note.

Add yourself to angelsoft.net, because if you don't they provide misleading information to discourage people from apply to you. For example, the firm True Ventures invest in early seed startup but they will list it as a very late stage funding VC outfit to discourage potential early stage startup from applying.

sullivan8263 · 1 month ago

What's the best way to present an idea to you? I've heard the traditional business plan isn't relevant. Great blog!

TC · 1 month ago

I saw some video pitch online that was good. Maybe you should try video pitching.

chris dixon · 1 month ago

It's a big question. I'm going to respond soon with a full blog post.

nobody · 1 month ago

Chris,
When do you think you have an answer to this question?

chris dixon · 1 month ago

Well, this blog post http://cdixon.org/?p=1893 was meant to address one of my main suggestions about pitching.

sullivan8263 · 1 month ago

LJC · 1 month ago

I am review some of your past successes, very impressive. I am very interested in the mentor but I do not need the money. Would Founder Collective take on startup for mentoring?

Chris Sorensen · 1 month ago

This is exactly what we need here in Silicon Valley.
Please let me know when you open an office in Palo Alto.