By Semil Shah A little more than two years ago, Jenny Lefcourt, who cofounded the wedding registry startup WeddingChannel.com and a short-lived e-commerce company called Marrkit, made the leap into venture capital. Specifically, the Stanford MBA joined Freestyle Capital founders Josh Felser and Dave Samuel at their small but growing seed-stage fund, and she’s been […]
Freestyle Capital
A Duo Reunites Over a New, Online Lending Opportunity
During the go-go ‘90s, an innovative company called OffRoad Capital emerged on the scene, pairing accredited investors with startups seeking funding via its online platform. A kind of AngelList 1.0, even OffRoad itself was backed by $17 million from roughly 150 accredited investors. Alas, its timing was lousy. Just as OffRoad began gaining real momentum, the […]
VC Josh Felser: Small Steps are Better Than None
This week, a new study found that tropical cyclones worldwide are moving out of the tropics and more toward populations of people, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the kind of news about which we should be more aware, and concerned. But in the land of social media, it commanded about as much attention as a new […]
Waiting for Seed Funds to Sprout Cash
Over the weekend, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen tweeted, as part of a broader conversation, that there are “definitely too many new small angel funds. That seems clear.” The comment kicked off a spirited debate on Twitter about small funds and their perceived merit. But if anyone knows what’s happening in the broader world of seed funds, […]
VCs and Twitter: A Simple Relationship Turns Complicated
Over the weekend, New York Times reporter Jenna Wortham wrote of Twitter that it “seems to have reached a turning point, a phase in which its contributors have stopped trying to make the service as useful as possible for the crowd, and are instead trying to distinguish themselves from one another.” If Wortham is becoming disillusioned […]
Series A Investors Take the Gloves Off
In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about the symbiotic relationship between seed-stage and Series A investors. But things are becoming a little less symbiotic of late, suggests Josh Felser, co-founder of Freestyle Capital, a San Francisco-based seed-stage firm that recently closed on a second, $40 million fund. Felser says that he has encountered a […]