Dear founders, we are founders too. We plan to help you in every way we can at any time we are needed. We will gather and offer advisors, mentors, and experienced subject matter experts who have been down this road before to help you solve problems and get back to the business of building your business. We don’t intend to run your company, create your culture or point you where you don’t want to go.
Everything is changing all the time and we are flexible and agile and plan to change with the influences our potential partners markets, technology, and environments present to them as opportunities to help improve the lives of others. We will follow emerging opportunities in AI, Machine Learning (Deep Learning), AR/VR, and things not yet imagined as we write this.
We will lean heavily toward B2B SaaS, and Direct to Consumer models that are driven by emerging technologies or innovating on existing technologies that solve problems for customers 5x better than anyone else or 10x than “business as usual.”
We believe investing in companies that we understand, which is to say business models that I understand. I have been a fundamental part of a variety of business types including my father’s roofing company, a database development consultancy in the 1990s, an ad agency and creative services firm. More that list includes businesses in web and application development, internet hosting, ISPs, apparel, hospitality, cloud services, cyber security, cryptography, and even a couple of world renowned ski resorts. It is not my assertion that I’m an expert in all or any of these industries but I have a very high level of confidence advising technology companies that produce products that can solve problems for the businesses and consumers of tomorrow.
Angels, Seed funds and super angels (smaller but aggressive investors) will need to innovate and differentiate in order to attract proprietary, quality deal flow and survive in the coming era of cultural digitization. We will be an inclusion focussed impact venture fund that is founder friendly and that believes in benefiting others. These two driving factors will be our differentiators.
We believe that recognizing value early and investing and developing founders and ideas will give us a unique advantage over other early stage investors. We will invest early, at low cost, and in phases mentioned above: product, validation, scale. By negotiating these terms and phasing our investments we can mitigate risk as deals progress at varying paces. Our phased approach will also allow us to influence pivots at crucial stages before too much road is behind our portfolio companies.
It is no longer enough to invest in portfolio companies that fit a firm’s thesis, steer them to an accelerator program, and then into the abyss of “good luck charlie land” to validate and grow their business. We employ a hands on approach, cultivate a sophisticated network of advisors, mentors, and business and consumer connectors and influencers that ensure our portfolio companies meet the goals set for them for product development, validation, and scale.
Underrepresented founders can produce the same or better returns than those of the current group represented in 93% of venture investments. We aim to invest in the “other” founders, develop them and see them through to success.
Because we see a massive inclusion gap in venture investing we select with prejudice against the founder profile that represents 93% of today’s venture funded companies: 30-ish white male founders. We are seeking mostly women founders, and others with social disadvantages like race, immigration status, sexual or gender orientation, learning differences and others I can’t think of right now. We will seek deals with extremely driven founders that intend to use technology to solve problems and improve the lives of others. We realize this assertion sounds vague and that is because we are not linear thinkers in this group. We trust good data and we trust that our experience will guide our intuition to make the final call when investing our investors’ money and our time in the founders and businesses that meet our criteria.
ut alteri beneficium (to benefit others)
The Alteri Fund believes that transformative ideas come from all walks of life. We are a Denver-based fund that believes in and understands the ability of start ups to transform entire industries while addressing social inclusion.
Because we see a significant inclusion gap in venture investing for this important category, we seek and select the best founders from largely overlooked social groups in regions of North America.
We believe underrepresented founders bring unique perspectives of the world that have largely been ignored thus giving them a distinct advantage over the majority of other startups.
We provide underrepresented founders with unfettered access to capital, networking, mentorship, advisors, and accelerators.
We seek deals with highly driven founders that intend to use technology to solve problems and improve the lives of others.
We trust data and our collective experience to guide our intuition when investing in the founders and businesses that meet our criteria.
