Structure Capital
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Look, Structure Capital is basically the 'sharing economy fund' — they've been riding that wave since 2013 when Mike Walsh used his Uber winnings to bootstrap this thing. Their portfolio companies genuinely love them — HONK called them 'one of our favorite and most impactful investors' who came to the rescue during a 'DEFCON 5' level App Store crisis. Peerspace said they were 'crucial to our early success' in everything from brand development to securing next rounds, with founders praising Mike's capital raising help, Jillian's culture work, and Jacob feeding them top candidates. The team actually has operational chops and gets their hands dirty — Jacob literally parachuted in as CTO of portfolio company Copia during Y Combinator. But here's the thing: their 'zero waste economy' thesis sounds great until you realize half their portfolio is just... regular SaaS companies that happen to optimize something. They're solid operators but don't expect revolutionary insights — this is steady, founder-friendly capital with decent networks, not the next Andreessen Horowitz.
- —Best for: Sharing economy/asset utilization startups needing hands-on operational support
- —Known for: Actually helping portfolio companies through real crises and connecting founders
- —Watch out for: Thesis creep - their 'zero waste' angle covers a lot of regular tech companies
Structure Capital is branded as 'Architects of the Zero Waste Economy' and invests in underutilized assets and excess capacity while helping passionate teams build great companies by investing seed-stage capital, time, experience and relationships. Their portfolio companies strive to eliminate waste, create significant value out of under-utilized assets, use precious resources efficiently, reduce overhead, empower individuals, put people to work and help communities grow while enabling more timely and relevant products and experiences.
Structure Capital operates as a venture capital firm with a focus on early-stage investments, encompassing seed to Series A rounds, with investment size generally falling between $150,000 and $1,500,000, with a sweet spot of around $400,000. They target a broad spectrum of industries, such as Software, PropTech, Education, BioTech, AgroTech, Retail and E-Commerce, Cosmetics and Fashion, HealthTech and Fitness, Analytics, Real Estate and Construction, Healthcare and Wellness, Online Social and Consumer, and Woman Focused sectors.
Mike has designed missile defense systems and air pollution control systems, was an early angel investor in Salesforce.com, founded and sold enterprise social networking company Leverage, was a first round investor in Uber, and launched Structure Capital in June 2013 after investing in 50 companies during the first year. His initial $5,000 investment in Uber in 2010 yielded returns worth tens of millions as Uber grew from a $5.4 million valuation to over $72 billion.
Jillian is an experienced banking and media executive, technology investor and entrepreneur who serves as Managing Partner of Structure Capital, provides business and political commentary on CNBC's Squawk Alley and Bloomberg, co-hosts Gimlet Media's business podcast 'The Pitch,' attended Oxford & NYU where she served on the Board of Trustees, and is a strong advocate for inclusion and diversity. She serves on numerous boards including Stanford University Digital Health, NASDAQ Entrepreneurial Center Board of Directors, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and was previously Founder of Broad Strategy, Co-Director of TMT for Credit Suisse Zurich, and Director of Development for Universal and Warner Bros.
Jacob has been coding for 20+ years, was hired at 19 as a programmer at Dell Computers working on the largest eCommerce store in the world, started a tech consulting firm for 7 years, co-founded a Digital Agency building products for Yahoo Sports, Qualcomm, NFL, Comcast, played leadership roles at Dell, NASCAR, F1, NFL, Qualcomm and Pixar, and joined Structure Capital as Director before becoming Partner. He stepped in as Chief Technology Officer for portfolio company Copia during the Y-Combinator W'16 batch.
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