This is a story about starting an enterprise seed fund called Boldstart in 2010 and our journey in enterprise since 1996. Despite our firm being a little over 6 years old, our individual stories go further back. We each independently fell in love with enterprise software 20+ years ago as seed investors (cos like gotomeeting/Citrix, greenplum/EMC, livperson/IPO LPSN) and founders (workmarket, onforce/Adecco, spinback/buddymedia/salesf0rce) and are now benefiting from the ecosystems, knowledge and network that we’ve collectively developed.
What seemed like a big bet in early 2010 was only us pursuing our passion. Our goal was to be the best first check partner for enterprise founders, bringing the value add of a VC firm while moving with the speed and conviction of an angel investor. We set out to build boldstart at the height of mobile app mania and viral growth and were faced with questions about our focus on enterprise and NYC. At the time there were only a handful of micro-VCs in existence, and despite going against the tide, we felt that the opportunity to build the first and best enterprise seed fund was a dream worth pursuing.
Today, we are super excited to announce our final close of $47mm for fund iii. This was oversubscribed from our initial target of $30mm