Susa Ventures
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Susa achieves an unusually high 10% unicorn rate at seed (versus 1% industry average) by specializing in data-centric companies with strong moats and maintaining a founder-first approach where they never take board seats or vote founders out. The firm's pedigree is solid - Chad's Kleiner Perkins lineage and Leo's 'Coding VC' reputation give them street cred, plus they actually hit on Robinhood and Flexport early. They operate with an intensive late-stage operating model at seed stage, limiting themselves to 6-8 companies per partner which means you'll get real attention, not just a check. The no-board-seat policy is genuinely founder-friendly, but don't mistake this for being hands-off - they're operator-heavy and will get in the weeds with you.
- —Best for: Data-driven startups wanting intensive support without board drama
- —Watch out for: High bar - they only do 6-8 deals per partner annually
- —Known for: 10% unicorn rate and never voting founders out
The company primarily invests in early-stage businesses with strong compounding moats, such as proprietary data, economies of scale, and network effects. Their investment strategy is centered around identifying data-centric companies with strong competitive advantages, such as proprietary data and network effects.
Susa Ventures has made 80 investments in Seed stage with an average round size of $4.75M, 34 investments in Series A stage with an average round size of $13.4M focused on enterprise software, finance technology, healthcare, logistics, infrastructure, dev tools, and frontier technology sectors.
Chad Byers, who is the son of Brook Byers, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins, was named among Forbes 30 Under 30 for VC in 2015. He focuses on investments in marketplaces, fintech, and healthcare. Chad led Susa's investments in Robinhood, Andela, Newfront Insurance, and Stord.
Leo Polovets, an early LinkedIn engineer who built Jobs and Groups, is known as the Coding VC for publishing engineering-style frameworks and evaluating startups as bundles of risks to de-risk. He was the second engineering hire at LinkedIn (joining when the company had ~12 people) and built early core products like Jobs and Groups before working on payments fraud at Google and big data infrastructure at Factual.
Seth Berman, who was previously the VP of marketing at the luxury goods company Richemont. Seth focuses on investments in frontier tech, logistics, marketplaces & consumer. Seth led Susa's investments in Flexport, Periscope Data, and Expanse.
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