Venture capital firm
Freestyle Capital Company type Private Industry Venture Capital Founded 2009 Founder Dave Samuel Josh Felser Headquarters , Key people
Dave Samuel, Co-Founder and General Partner Jenny Lefcourt, General Partner Website freestyle.vc
Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California.[1] General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies.[2] The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million.[3] Previous investments include Intercom , Patreon , Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.[2]
Freestyle was founded in 2009 by Dave Samuel and Josh Felser.[4] Prior to Freestyle, Felser and Samuel founded two companies:[2] Spinner, which they sold to AOL in 1999 for $320 million,[5] [6] and Grouper (later renamed Crackle ), which they sold to Sony Corp. in 2006 for $65 million.[1]
In 2011, Freestyle announced a formal fund of $27 million.[1] Freestyle raised its second fund of $40 million in 2013 and their third fund of $60 million in 2015.[2]
Jenny Lefcourt joined Freestyle toward the end of Fund II and became an equal partner at the close of Fund III.[2] Notable investments from the first three funds include Intercom , Patreon , Narvar, Digit, Wag , Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.[2] [7]
In 2017, Freestyle raised $90 million for its fourth fund.[2]
According to the firm’s website, Josh Felser stepped down as full-time general partner in the summer of 2020 to focus his efforts on companies that foster a more resilient planet.
In March 2022, Freestyle closed its sixth fund at $130 million, making it the firm’s largest fund to date. The fund was raised in a month from existing investors.[3]
Dave Samuel earned his bachelor degree from MIT .[4] In 1996, Samuel founded and was the CEO of Spinner, one of the first online radio services, which was acquired by AOL for $320 million in 1999. In 2004, he co-founded Crackle, one of the first internet video services, which was acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment for $65 million in 2006.[1] In addition to his work at Freestyle, Samuel is the founder and chairman of tech toilet seat company Brondell Inc.[8]
Jenny Lefcourt earned her B.S. in economics from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ,[9] and attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business . In 1998 she left Stanford to found WeddingChannel.com, which was acquired by The Knot, and Bella Pictures, which was acquired by CPI Corp (now defunct).[10] In 2014, Lefcourt joined Freestyle and was promoted to general partner in 2015.[11] She is also a founding member and board member of All Raise,[12] and an angel investor in Discord , Minted and Main Street Hub.[13] Lefcourt was named to the Forbes “Midas Brink List” in 2021[13] and the "Midas Seed List" in 2022,[14] as well as Barron’s “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance" for 2022.[15]
Notable Investments [ edit ] As of March 2022, about 29% of current fund companies have a woman founder or co-founder.[3]
about.me – personal web hosting service, acquired by AOL in 2010.[16]
Airtable – spreadsheet-database collaboration service.[17]
Alphadraft – daily fantasy sports provider, acquired by FanDuel in 2015.[18]
Autodesk – architecture, engineering and entertainment software developer.[19]
backtype – SaaS social media analytics service, acquired by Twitter in 2011.[20]
BetterUp – mobile-based leadership platform.[21]
Buildingconnected - construction bid-management platform, acquired in 2018 by Autodesk.[19]
Clypd – video ad-targeting service, acquired by AT&T’s Xandr in 2019.[22]
Digit – personal finance software,[23] acquired in 2021 by consumer lender Opportun.[24]
Daily - provider of API for easy video integration.[25]
Ease – human resources and benefits administration software.[citation needed ]
Embark Veterinary – dog genetics company.[26]
Fi - smart dog collar company.[27]
figure eight – data annotation company, acquired by Appen in 2019 for $300 million.[28]
Goinstant – co-browsing software, sold to Salesforce.com in 2012 for $70 million.[29]
Impermium – cybersecurity provider, acquired in 2019 by Google.[30]
indextank – real-time-hosted search, acquired in 2011 by LinkedIn.[31]
Intercom – business messaging software for sales, marketing and support.
Joyride – podcast player, acquired by Google.
Launchkit – toolkit for mobile app development, acquired in 2016 by Google.[32]
leo – messaging app, acquired in 2015 by Lyft.[33]
Narvar – post-purchase software for order tracking, messaging and returns.[34]
Opsmatic – DevOps monitoring tool, acquired in 2015 by New Relic.[35]
Patreon – membership platform for creators to run a subscription service.[36]
payable – payment platform, acquired in 2107 by Stripe.[37]
Rangeme – platform for consumer packaged goods, acquired in 2017 by Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM).[38]
Snapdocs – digital loan closing platform.[7]
Snappytv – video clip platform, acquired in 2014 by Twitter.[39]
Superside (formerly Konsus) - outsourced design platform.[40]
Tenor (formerly riffsy) – GIF keyboard and search engine, acquired in 2018 by Google.[41]
Thatch – travel creator business tools provider.[42]
Typekit – cloud-based font site, acquired in 2011 by Adobe [43]
Well – communication platform for patients and healthcare organizations[44]
^ a b c d Yuliya Chernova, "Seed Investor Freestyle Capital Churning Out Exits," The Wall Street Journal , December 31, 2014.
^ a b c d e f g Ryan Lawler, "Freestyle Capital raised a new $90 million fund and promoted Jenny Lefcourt to general partner," TechCrunch , April 10, 2017.
^ a b c Mascarenhas, Natasha (March 31, 2022). "For Freestyle's newest fund, the growth hack is staying the same" . TechCrunch . Retrieved April 27, 2022 .
^ a b Leena Rao, "Sweat Equity: From Co-Founders To Co-Investors, Freestyle.VC Invests More Than Just Cash," TechCrunch , July 13, 2013.
^ "HI-TECH'S NEW DAY" . Newsweek. 10 April 2005. Retrieved 4 August 2019 .
^ "America Online Acquires Leading Internet Music Brands -- Spinner.Com, Winamp and SHOUTcast" . WarnerMedia . 1 June 1999. Retrieved 4 August 2019 .
^ a b Schubarth, Cromwell (8 November 2019). "The Funded: 6 Bay Area startups score over $100M at week's end" . Silicon Valley Business Journal . Retrieved 27 April 2019 .
^ Benny Evangalista, "Bottom line means more to this firm," San Francisco Chronicle , February 7, 2005.
^ How to Pitch Your Startup to a Venture Capitalist , Knowledge at Wharton, 22 March 2018, retrieved 17 May 2021
^ Rao, Leena (30 May 2014). "WeddingChannel Co-Founder Jenny Lefcourt Joins Freestyle" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 7 July 2019 .
^ Wilhelm, Alex (2 April 2015), Freestyle Capital Locks Down $60M For Its Third Fund, Adds Jenny Lefcourt As Its Third Partner , TechCrunch, retrieved 17 May 2015
^ Sonnemaker, Tyler (2 May 2020). "Venture capitalists reveal the startups that changed everything in the past decade" . Business Insider. Retrieved 21 May 2021 .
^ a b "The Midas Brink List: Meet Venture Capital's Up-And-Comers For 2021" . Forbes . 13 April 2021. Retrieved 21 May 2021 .
^ "The Midas Seed List" . Forbes . 14 April 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2022 .
^ "Jenny Lefcourt" . 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance . Barron’s . 15 April 2022. Retrieved 20 April 2022 .
^ frommer, Dan (20 December 2010). "About.Me CEO Tony Conrad: Here's Why I Sold My Company To AOL So Quickly" . Business Insider . Retrieved 21 July 2019 .
^ Bertoni, Steven (15 November 2018). "Move Slow and Make Things: Airtable's Howie Liu Built A $1B Software Giant Emphasizing Substance Over Speed" . Forbes . Retrieved 12 May 2021 .
^ Grubb, Jeff (24 September 2015). "FanDuel acquires AlphaDraft to get into esports" . VentureBeat. Retrieved 27 July 2019 .
^ a b Miller, Ron (20 December 2018). "Autodesk adds to construction software biz with acquisition of BuildingConnected for $275M" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Dugan, Lauren (5 July 2011). "Twitter Acquires Social Media Analytics Company BackType" . Adweek. Retrieved 27 July 2019 .
^ Clark, Kate (12 June 2019). "BetterUp raises $103M to fast-track employee learning and development" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 12 May 2021 .
^ Dang, Sheila (17 October 2019). "AT&T's Xandr purchases TV advertising company clypd: source" . Reuters . Retrieved 27 April 2021 .
^ "The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 10/7/19" . AlleyWatch . 7 October 2019. Retrieved 12 May 2021 .
^ "Oportun buying challenger bank Digit for $213 million" . American Banker . 16 November 2021. Retrieved 20 April 2022 .
^ Hall, Christine (10 November 2021). "Daily grabs another $40M so developers can add video, audio features to any product" . TechCrunch. Retrieved 22 April 2022 .
^ Maffei, Lucia (26 July 2021). "SoftBank Vision Fund 2 leads $75M round in dog DNA testing startup" . Boston Business Journal. Retrieved 5 May 2022 .
^ Chen, I-Chun (25 February 2021). "Fi fetches $30M in funds to expand its GPS-enabled 'smart' dog collar" . New York Business Journal. Retrieved 22 April 2022 .
^ Ha, Anthony (10 March 2019). "Appen acquires Figure Eight for up to $300M, bringing two data annotation companies together" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Spencer E. Ante, "Salesforce.com to Buy GoInstant," The Wall Street Journal , July 9, 2012.
^ Kim-Mai Cutler, "Spam-Fighting Startup Impermium Joins Google, Discontinues Third-Party Services," TechCrunch , January 15, 2019.
^ Rao, Leena (11 October 2011). "LinkedIn Buys Real-Time, Hosted Search Startup IndexTank" . TechCrunch. Retrieved 4 August 2019 .
^ yeung, ken (27 July 2016). "Google acquires LaunchKit, will discontinue hosted mobile development services" . VentureBeat . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Buhr, Sarah (26 June 2015). "Lyft Acqui-Hires The Team From Messaging App Leo To Improve Location And Other Features" . TechCrunch. Retrieved 27 July 2019 .
^ Kolodny, Lora (23 June 2016). "Narvar raises $22 million to help internet retailers deliver physical goods without frustrating customers" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 27 April 2021 .
^ Novet, Jordan (5 November 2015). "New Relic buys devops monitoring tool Opsmatic" . VentureBeat. Retrieved 27 July 2019 .
^ Peckham, Eric (12 February 2019). "The Founding Story of Patreon" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 27 April 2021 .
^ Lawler, Ryan (26 July 2017). "Stripe acquires Payable to help on-demand businesses manage 1099 tax reporting" . TechCrunch . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Mitchell, Sue (7 June 2017). "Windfall for investors as RangeMe sold to US marketing company" . Financial Review . Retrieved 21 July 2019 .
^ Spangler, Todd (19 June 2014). "Twitter Acquires SnappyTV to Bring More TV Content to Social Network" . Variety . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Ha, Anthony (5 September 2019). "Newly renamed Superside raises $3.5M for its outsourced design platform" . TechCrunch. Retrieved 22 April 2022 .
^ Chaykowski, Kathleen (27 March 2018). "Google To Acquire Startup Tenor As Mobile GIF-Sharing Explodes" . Forbes . Retrieved 16 July 2019 .
^ Hall, Christine (30 August 2021). "Thatch using $3M round to put travel creators on the map" . TechCrunch. Retrieved 5 May 2022 .
^ Takahashi, Dean (3 October 2011). "Adobe acquires cloud font site Typekit as part of larger creative cloud service offering" . VentureBeat . Retrieved 21 July 2019 .
^ Hackett, Mallory (25 November 2020). "Well Health pulls in $45M and welcomes a new senior vice president" . Mobile Health News . Retrieved 27 April 2021 .