Founder Collective Debuts with $40M

The new Somerville, MA-based venture fund Founder Collective made a public debut today in a blog post by founder Chris Dixon, the CEO and co-founder of New York-based Hunch. Joining Dixon in the collective are serial entrepreneurs Eric Paley (Brontes Technologies), Dave Frankel (Internet Solutions), Mark Gerson (Gerson Lehrman Group), Zach Klein (Vimeo), Bill Trenchard (LiveOps), and Micah Rosenbloom (Brontes). Xconomy reported in June that the firm had obtained investments and commitments totaling about $30 million; according to Dixon’s post, that number is now $40 million. That’s small for a venture fund, but Founder Collective intends to help New York- and Cambridge-based startups with seed funding only. “Hence our interests and the founders’ interests are aligned,” Dixon writes. “This also means we are happy with smaller exits if that’s what the entrepreneur wants to do.”

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/