In our new article series, we introduce the most exciting venture capital firms that are open for LP investments to our family office network. The article belongs to our exclusive single-family office guidebook, where we give guidance on the most relevant topics for newly established and already existing family investment vehicles.
In this article, we talked to Unpopular Ventures, a syndicate venture capital firm founded by very successful angel investors that aims to back those companies that deviate from the mainstream patterns and go for disruptive ideas, unknown markets and fields, or forgotten geographies. Taking risks on backing the best-in-class startups and finding the right team capable of making it happen is what they are experts on!
Familyofficehub.io (FO): Briefly describe your focus: in which kind of startups are you investing, where is your geographical focus, what’s your average ticket size?
Unpopular Ventures: Our mantra is “the best companies, off the beaten path”. We invest in early-stage technology startups globally, and we firmly believe that outsized investment returns come from taking positions that are “non-consensus and right.” Along those lines, we actively seek outstanding teams, who go where no one else goes: overlooked geographies, unpopular markets, and ideas that others initially dismiss.
Our average investment is $250k but we usually invest between $100k and $700k.
FO: What are exciting companies in your portfolio – and why?
Unpopular Ventures: Despite Unpopular is quite new and we don’t have any mega-hits yet, we have some companies that have already raised money at valuations that are 5x higher than our entry point, and many of our companies have been followed by top tier institutional venture firms, including Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, First Round Capital, and Kleiner Perkins.
Both as angel investors and through Unpopular Ventures, we have invested more than $16M in 52 companies.
Our founder has a successful track record on entrepreneurship both as an operator and as a solo angel investor before putting together Unpopular Ventures less than 2 years ago. As an operator, its most successful outcome was iRhythm, where he was among the first 3 people at the company, and it’s now a public company valued at more than $7 Billion.
FO: Why should a Family Office invest in Unpopular Ventures as LP?
Unpopular Ventures: Because we are very good at what we do, and have a track record of producing top decile venture returns. Our current portfolio is performing extremely well (annual and quarterly reports). Our 2019 portfolio is already marked at 1.75x – which is well within the top decile of Venture Capital industry returns for that vintage (or any vintage for that matter).
Our performance is also evident in the fact that, despite being less than 2 years old, we are already the biggest syndicate on AngelList in terms of the amount of money we’ve moved through the platform over the last 12 months (this is out of 350+ active syndicates on AngelList). We are a popular syndicate because we consistently invest in high-quality startups that go on to produce good investment returns – and the existing AngelList LP base recognizes that.
FO: Are you also open to investments from European family offices?
Unpopular Ventures: Yes of course. Among the 1440 LPs we already have, at least 100 of them are European.
FO: Thanks for your time!
Headquarters: San Francisco, USA
Website: Unpopular Ventures
