At Grit Capital, we have been investing personal capital for a good while, to good success.  Bringing together multi-stage family office investing, seed investing, and acceleration, and setting them all on a platform with a concentrated thesis and analytical rigor takes time.  We have been moving all of those pieces into place for the better part of a year.

As we set out to raise a fund, we paid particular attention to the teams and models we saw in the market.  Two funds we have been close to have something in common.  In the case of BRV in Menlo Park, and Real Ventures in Montreal, the partners have made a determination to work with a small team, and to make sure they remember to have fun while working with ideas and entrepreneurs to deliver differentiated returns.

So off we went. We decided to go small to begin with, and looked to bring on investors who could help accelerate our portfolio, but also those who we enjoy.  To accomplish this, we applied a ten-year rule. One of us needed to know someone for more than a decade for them to be eligible to invest in the fund.  We ended up with a group of investors who are each top executives from different industries that will be a powerful network for our portfolio, that only we could have assembled.  We are so glad that we set out to work with who we know and enjoy, with a meaningful network as a goal as well.

The result has been an incredible whirlwind of one of the things we set out to do – Raise a Fun.