TheVentures

At TheVentureCity, the world’s minorities are our majority and thinking outside the box is the norm, not the exception. We’re a female-founded VC who believes that founders and ecosystems have no zip code. We’re here to make a difference for those communities. We offer promising founders investment with bespoke data insights and hands-on expertise – designed for product-led growth. With hubs in Miami, Madrid, San Francisco, and Sao Paulo, we see beyond borders and create a steady current of resources for founders.

Co Ventures invests in Pre-seed companies building global unicorns where at least one of the founders is Australian. We work with the most ambitious teams, and accelerate their success through our community of Venture Partners. Work with a community of successful founder and LPs to unlock value for the next generation of global unicorns Work with companies and community all over the world Work flexibly with both in person and remote parts to your role

We believe creating something of true significance starts with seeing things others do not. This ability shows up in rare Founders. Those who think independently and creatively. Outsiders who never compromise their point of view, and never give up. As Founders, we reinvented industries with this mindset. As investors, our approach is no different – our goal is to transform how innovators are funded. We fund you first and we fund you fast. Then we help you get it right fast. Then we help you raise your next round at levels that are often embarrassingly high. We bring the Founders we back exponential yet little-known techniques for network effects and growth. We make visible the typically unseen methods and give you unfair advantages. Having built 10 companies with more than $10 billion in exits across multiple industries and geographies, we’re entrepreneur-first because we were entrepreneurs first. And we’re determined to guard the backs of the next generation of fearless founders.

We've been founders, operators, and investors. We’ve experienced success and we’ve experienced failure but most importantly… we deeply understand the struggle of building a business from the ground up. We write the first cheque into the best early stage companies. Then we lean in to help the founders build & scale. We back people. We’re comfortable investing across all sectors and business models. And our goal is simple: To be the most valued early-stage partner for the top 1% of founders in Australia. How we invest We typically invest up to $500k in pre-seed or seed rounds. We are super collaborative and enjoy investing alongside other great investors both in Australia and around the world. We are sector agnostic but looking for the best surfers riding the biggest waves - outlier founders, building in big markets. We are early stage specialists - we focus on solving the challenges of 0–1. It’s never too early. We’re comfortable backing companies very early, often pre-revenue. Why founders work with us We are founders and we behave like founders - with passion, enthusiasm and belief. We are flexible on valuation and ownership. We think what’s best for the founder is best for us. We offer active and collaborative support focussed on the earliest stages of building a business - such as hiring, fundraising and getting to product market fit. We have a high Helpfulness to Cheque Size ratio (H:CS) We’re building a unique community of founders who want to contribute. We are an global team with a global network. We feel fortunate to be here and absolutely LOVE what we do. What we look for Outlier Founders: First and foremost, we back people. We look for outlier founders who have proven hustle, a compelling, global vision, the hunger and drive to build a billion dollar business and the capability to sell their vision to employees, partners and future investors. Differentiated Product: We look for products that are solving real and meaningful problems, with passionate first customers and that have the potential to be orders of magnitude better than their nearest competitor. This could be demonstrated through sticky initial customers, accessing an underserved market or through a compelling and non-consensus product insight. Big Markets: Our focus is sector agnostic but with a bias towards big markets that have either billions of potential customers or billions of dollars in accessible revenue capacity.

We are early believers in magically weird founders and help them realize their vision for the world. Our values. Chase the magically weird. “Chase the magically weird” pushes us to do things that take guts, focus on finding outliers, question the status quo, and let our freak flags fly. We love unconventional ideas, quirky personalities, bold choices, and things other people describe as ridiculous or stupid. We try to infuse magical weirdness into our events, our company culture, and everything else we put out in the world. Some examples of magical weirdness at work? Attending toilet paper conventions. Getting tattoos of company logos. Sending a founder pizza delivered by a dude dressed as a rat. Escape rooms. Alpacas. Bob Ross. You get the idea. If you’re a weirdo and/or you’re building something crazy, we’d love to chat! Be a bubbe. This value is our north star for how we interact with our founders and broader community. Lots of founders ask, “How do you typically work with the companies you invest in?” and our answer is that we aim to “be a bubbe.” Bubbe is the Yiddish word for a grandmother. In her purest form, a bubbe is incredibly (sometimes comically) hospitable, wise, protective, direct, and, occasionally, a little neurotic. Her love for you is unconditional, but she doesn’t take bullsh*t from anyone. She makes a mean matzo ball soup and she tells you like it is. Spending time with bubbe is good for the heart, soul, and stomach. In practice, this may look like: Checking in with founders about their lives and families. Hosting intimate events that feel like dinner at grandma’s house. Sharing personal stories. Sending freshly baked cookies. Communicating as directly as possible, but always with love. And maybe even hand-knitting some swag. Our character alignment is Chaotic Good. If Long Journey were a Dungeons & Dragons player, our character alignment would be Chaotic Good - a complex trait that combines a good heart with a free spirit. Chaotic Good characters make their own way, but remain kind. They value freedom and independence above all else, and they know that prosperity comes from empowering individual autonomy and looking beyond the standard mold - this is exactly what we aim to do. This value also reminds us to stay humble and not take ourselves too seriously. We are allergic to self-importance and entitlement, and drawn to curiosity and playfulness. Our “Chaotic Good” value reminds us to stick to our principles, have fun, and keep our eyes on the long game. It's not Monopoly money. “It’s not Monopoly money” emphasizes that we take money very seriously, and we appreciate that there’s a story behind every dollar. Wealth isn’t built overnight, and we feel a responsibility to honor the work our LPs put into building their wealth. We are disciplined, high-integrity stewards of our LPs’ capital, and we back founders who similarly care about and understand the value of that investment. We believe that money is fuel and money enables freedom. Our job is to return as much money as we possibly can to our LPs, and we don’t take that job lightly. We want to work with founders who understand and respect this value.

firstminute capital is a $320m sector-agnostic seed fund backed by 120 unicorn founders, including over 20 founders of $10bn+ businesses. Our General Partner Brent Hoberman is a double unicon founder. Yet, we are more than a fund. We’re an ecosystem of entrepreneurs from all over the world who, facilitated by firstminute capital’s team, come together to help one another, turn vision into reality and create the future. Our community is our edge. It is the source of the transformational support we offer to our partners who are warmly welcomed inside. An invitation into the firstminute capital community is secured by those with a special kind of spirit, not just a solid spreadsheet. A rare breed driven by a powerful characteristic we call, ‘Magnetic Ambition.’ Those with it often don’t recognise it in themselves, yet they are propelled forward by it, every day. We see it in their ability to capture hearts and minds with their vision, their belief and their commitment. When we find a founder with Magnetic Ambition, we open the door to the firstminute capital community and we give them everything they need. At your service What can founders expect from working with us? First of all, our 9-person investment team will fight for founders. Between us, members of the team have backed 10 unicorn startups at seed; we have IPO-ed companies; we have started companies; we have fundraised ourselves and we have failed and picked ourselves up again. So we are all here to help with advice, strategy brainstorming, product workshops, introductions to customers, raising a Series A or just being there for you in the tough times as well as the good times. If we can't help, we'll know someone in our extensive network who can and we'll make that intro. On top of the investment team, founders also get the whole "platform" team, which is another 11 people dedicated to helping founders scale their business and help with areas such as hiring and marketing. Our goal is to be the most helpful seed fund in Europe. We love to help founders build. Network effects At firstminute, we see ourselves as collaboration catalysts. We act to unlock the value our the community and bring our own expertise to bear when the time is right. Thanks to our 120 unicorn backers as well as a network of top CEO supporting us, firstminute has an extensive global reach. We like to bring on our investors - some of the top angels in the world - into our deals and as advisers to supercharge companies. firstminute's co-founder is Brent Hoberman, who after founding and exiting two unicorn startups himself created a network of companies under the 'Founders' umbrella. These include a world-class event series called Founders Forum as well as a consultancy, a recruitment firm, a charitable arm and Europe's largest incubator-accelerator. This whole ecosystem is part of our network, which helps with everything from sales introduction to finding top talent. We also have a large investor network to help with that Series A fundraise and beyond, having done deals with our friend at funds such as Tiger Global, Sequoia, Benchmark, a16z, Coatue and Atomico. Being part of our community, with our events and parties with some of the biggest names in tech and business, means you will be working with the best. We do an annual retreat for founders as well as regular drinks and dinners. Every year we hold our flagship summit in London which brings together firstminute investors, portfolio founders, partners from the top US and European multi-stage funds, and friends who are all bright lights in the tech community. Read more about that here.