a board seat in the firm’s portfolio companies, which included VideoEgg and Luxology. But CVT did not have a services business, which Boro envisions as a way to work much more closely with startup founders. He says Team Group also has a few more deep-pocket investors, including Jack Rivkin, a Wall Street investor and former head of CitiGroup’s Technology Venture Group.
“The service side represents a real need,” Boro says. “It’s something we do very well, and it keeps the lights on.”
The key difference in Team Group’s approach, Boro says, is that the firm plans to use its service business to generate its investment capital, instead of trying to raise a series of venture funds from endowments, pension funds, and other sources. “It’s safe to say that if the VC model is not broken, it certainly is challenged,” says Boro, who notes that Team Group’s partners will not be taking VC management fees. (They instead draw a salary out of the services business revenues.) “In some ways, we’re almost like private equity,” he says. “We’re getting involved with less than a handful of deals at a time, and we’re getting deeply involved in each of them.”
Boro says Team Services is targeting Web entrepreneurs who have raised from $500,000 to $750,000 in early seed or Series A funding or bootstrapped entrepreneurs who are generating cash flow.
“They don’t want to spend a bund of money on administrative staff,” Boro says. “To make your money last as long as possible, you don’t want to hire a CFO and build a finance team.”
Team Group’s Broadhead was the COO and CFO at Zui, and has worked as the CFO at many venture-backed startups, and Boro says Team Group’s six-person roster includes experienced controllers and bookkeepers. As seasoned Web entrepreneurs, Boro says they have learned that most startups hire and build their finance teams either too early late. Team Services can help get the timing just right, and represents an affordable alternative.
In addition, Boro says their firm also can help entrepreneurs develop their business strategies and can help them to raise additional capital.
