Community-Powered Venture Capital, Expanding with Intentionality, and Distinguishing Good from Great, with Jenny Fielding of The Fund

The VITALIZE Podcast: Venture Capital | Startups | Angel Investing

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Jenny Fielding (@jefielding), General Partner at The Fund, a first-of-its-kind venture fund fueled by a community of brilliant founders & operators. The Fund invests in mission-driven, technology-enabled companies at the earliest stages. They are a generalist fund with a focus on the basic stuff we need to live: money, health and work, and have invested in the pre-seed rounds of 200+ companies in 4.5 years. They’ve pooled capital, networks, and expertise to help grow startup ecosystems around the globe in a radical new way, and unlike traditional venture capital, they involve their community in everything they do.

Jenny is a 2x entrepreneur and knows how challenging it is to build great products, inspire a team, and keep the lights on. She spends her time working to surround founders with the resources they need to survive + thrive. She has been the first check into 200+ startups including: Chainalysis, Alloy, Latch, Tempo Automation, Headway, Supergreat, Dash, Contra, Particle Health, Bloomscape, Simple Health, Pair Eyewear, Solo Funds, Halp, Minded, Rupa Health, Morty, Wagmo, Smarthop, Solid, PathSpot, Remesh, Cube, OnePipe, Union Crate, Season, Parsley Health and many more. She is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University where she spent many years as a student.

Website: The Fund
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennyfielding/
Twitter: @jefielding
Email: [e-mail]

Show Notes:

• What Jenny is working on today at The Fund and their “by founders for founders” model
• The logistics of expanding to ten cities and deciding where to launch
• The Fund’s structure and the strategy behind it
• The evolution of The Fund’s growth from fund I to fund III
• The Fund’s investment thesis
• Their portfolio-to-portfolio model and how they’re approaching growth strategically
• How they leverage their diverse community to execute diligence
• The Fund’s venture partners
• What distinguishes good CEOs from great CEOs
• Jenny’s thoughts on valuations in the current 2022 market
• Jenny’s advice for becoming a better investor
• Innovation in highly regulated industries
• Trends Jenny is excited about in the Future of Work
• The value of in-person activity and events
• Merging the experiences of being a founder and investor as a GP at a micro fund

More about the show:

The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.

Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.

The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.

The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.

More about us:

Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

The Vitalize Team:

Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212

Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/