Foundry

At Foundry Group, we are hiring a Head of Network. Following is a repost of the overview of the role and why we are adding a Head of Network to our team. If you are interested in applying, please reach out to us at apply@foundrygroup.com . And please help us get the word out! We’re looking for a leader to create a more robust, dynamic, and connected network program at Foundry Group. The Foundry Network , as we’ve been calling it, encompasses founders, CEOs, executives, general partners of our underlying venture capital fund investments, limited partners (our investors as well as other investors in the funds we have investments in), and other members of our ecosystem. We regularly bring together members of this community to connect, share, and learn from each other. ...

At Foundry Group, we’ve decided to voluntarily extend our Work from Home policy until at least the end of May 2020. Until then, our office is closed. We will re-evaluate this on May 25th and decide whether to let our Work from Home policy expire, or extend it further. We encourage all Colorado-based software and professional services businesses to consider this policy. Given our State’s current “Safer at Home” policy, overall limitations on testing, uncertainty around the current state of the Covid crisis, and the existing stress on many healthcare-related systems, we believe that many businesses can do their part to ease the strain by continuing Work from Home policies. ...

It’s that time of year again where we like to shop at our portfolio companies. We thought it would be fun to highlight some of our direct investments and partner funds’ portfolio companies this holiday season. You can check out the full Foundry Group Gift Guide here. If you want even more gift options, Techstars also has an awesome gift guide.

Inspired by our friends at Techstars and their Techstars Holiday Guide , we thought it would be fun to highlight some of our direct and partner fund portfolio companies this holiday season. We think everything listed below is awesome, so we’ve tried to keep the hyperbole out of the descriptions so you can quickly scan for anything you are interested in. Apparel, Lifestyle, and Sports Betabrand – Business casual clothing Havenly – Online interior design Inkbox – Temporary tattoos Primary – Kids clothing The Pros Closet – Pre-owned bicycles and components Wires – Handcrafted eyeglasses Education ...

Semil Shah recently wrote a post titled Investing Outside The Bay Area . In it, he talked about his own experience expanding his investment horizons beyond the bay area, but also mentioned some other folks, including us and USV, where he did a quick analysis of the location of our partner funds. From Semil’s post: “Another firm linked closely to USV — Foundry Group in Boulder — has also been investing with an eye for geographic diversity. While I don’t have portfolio level stats for them, their new endeavor Foundry Next (to invest in smaller funds and then follow-on into key investments) has built up an LP basket of 23 positions in a variety of new VC funds. Of the 23 funds listed here, 13 are in the Bay Area, 3 in NYC, 3 in Boston, 2 in LA, and one each in Detroit, Seattle, Toronto, Waterloo, Indianapolis, and Fargo, North Dakota. This is a very clever way of helping new funds get their footing and hearing about what is working before others may pick up the scent.” ...

This post originally appeared as Announcing Foundry Group Next 2018 on the Foundry Group website. We are happy to announce the closing of our seventh fund, Foundry Group Next 2018. The $750 million fund combines all of our prior fund strategies – our early stage, early growth, and partner fund investments – into a single fund. For historical reference, our early-stage funds (FG 2007, FG 2010, FG 2013, and FG 2016) are all $225 million in size. Our first early growth fund raised in 2013, Foundry Group Select, is also $225m in size. In 2016, when we raised Foundry Group Next, we approximately doubled the size of that fund to $500 million since 30% of it was going to be invested in partner funds and 70% in early growth. So, at the beginning of 2016, we effectively raised $725 million (FG 2016 and Foundry Group Next). Foundry Group Next 2018 is simply the combination of those two funds rounded up slightly. ...

As many of you know, my partner Jason is from Detroit. The 313. The Motor City. The D! He’s going back home for a special event and I encourage anyone near Detroit to go hang with him. In case you don’t know about Jason, prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Jason was a co-founder of SRS Acquiom and a Managing Director and General Counsel for Mobius Venture Capital. Prior to this, Jason was an attorney with Cooley. Early in his career, Jason was a software engineer at Accenture. ...

Last summer, when we made a statement about Our Zero Tolerance Policy On Sexual Harassment , a number of people asked us to publicly release our formal policy. We wanted to take our time and make sure we covered as many different elements of the issue as we could. We’ve done that, and as part of #MovingForward we’ve made the Foundry Group Sexual Harassment Policy public. Among other things, we’ve tried to address the issue of non-disparagement clauses. We’ve come to the conclusion that they should be excluded from agreements, and are encouraging our portfolio companies and the funds we invest in to do so as well. Following is the specific section about non-disparagement clauses from our Sexual Harassment Policy . ...

Over the past 25 years, I’ve attended approximately 14,387 board meetings. My partners and I talk a lot about how to improve them and today released The Foundry Group Manifesto on Board Meetings . It follows: In 2013, I wrote a book with Mahendra Ramsinghani about board meetings titled Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors. It was a tough book to write because every time I dug into it, I got bored, but I think it ended up being a contribution to the corpus of entrepreneurial knowledge. However, I anticipate Bored Meetings will be an even more significant contribution.

If you enjoyed I’m a VC , take another walk down memory lane with me back to 2015 and watch our second video, Worst of Times. More soon. Hint, hint …