Great Oaks Venture Capital
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Great Oaks is the definition of a spray-and-pray seed fund—but they've made it work spectacularly. With nearly 20 years and 500+ investments, they maintain a 'low-noise' reputation and distinctive barbell portfolio spanning consumer brands and technical infrastructure. Andy Boszhardt is old-school Wall Street who actually gets early-stage—rare combo. The team doesn't pretend to be hands-on operators, but they're reliable first-check writers who won't micromanage or pivot-panic you to death. Their 14 unicorns and 106 acquisitions speak louder than their marketing copy. If you need someone to believe in you before anyone else does and write small checks fast, they're solid. Just don't expect deep operational help.
- —Best for: First institutional check when you're pre-traction and need patient capital
- —Watch out for: Limited operational support—they're check writers, not operators
- —Known for: Consistent early bets across 20 years with impressive unicorn hit rate
Great Oaks is among the most active Seed-stage investors, focused on supporting founders building enduring businesses by backing founders with ambitious visions and the capability to execute at scale. They partner with founders at the earliest stage of company building across the United States.
They invest $50,000-$500,000 in Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A financings with 345 companies in their portfolio, primarily investing in Seed rounds across enterprise applications, consumer, retail, HealthTech and FinTech sectors.
Seeded 500+ tech and consumer startups since founding Great Oaks in 2003, with prior experience as Managing Director at Neuberger Berman and 16 years at Goldman Sachs. Known as one of the most active early-stage investors in NYC's tech ecosystem.
Selected to 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 for Venture Capital and the Seed 100. Economics & Environmental Science double major from Bowdoin, known for being hands-on with portfolio companies.
Investor for two decades in 100+ companies, previously Partner at Athena Technology, Madison Angels, and PE firm Chatterjee-Soros Group ($2B), with Harvard MBA and Yale BS.
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