Jeremy Fiance, a 24 year-old Cal alum, has just announced the House Fund, a $6M venture capital fund dedicated to pre-seed and seed investments for Berkeley students, faculty, and alumni startups. Fiance (Cal ‘14) dedicated most of his undergraduate career to solving what he believes is a glaring problem with the Berkeley startup ecosystem: there isn’t a dedicated Cal VC fund for early-stage startups. Fiance told medium.com in his announcement post last week that most early companies need somewhere between $20k – $200k to get started with their venture, but most of his friends were not finding that support and were instead working outside the Berkeley startup ecosystem to raise money to start their companies.
Fiance recognized this issue early on in his undergraduate career and worked to build the young entrepreneurship community by helping to form the Kairos Society, co-founding Free Ventures, a student-run accelerator, and bringing the Dorm Room Fund to Berkeley which invested $120k in six Berkeley startups which have gone on to raise more than $38M.
“I was building these things that I wished existed for me,” Fiance recently told Fortune magazine in an interview last month.
Fiance knew that Berkeley had many talented entrepreneurs that have already produced many viable companies, (according to a recent PitchBook report, Berkeley ranks #2 behind Stanford for entrepreneurs and companies created, and capital raised), but he did not understand why this critical piece of strong investment in early-stage startups was missing at Cal. Other campuses already had robust investment in place to support early-stage startups for students, faculty, and alumni such as StartX, Stanford’s early accelerator which has raised $1.5B and invested an average of $4.5M per company to date. So Fiance thought — if Berkeley is already performing on par with other campuses producing successful startups, there might be a big opportunity at Cal to invest in more early-stage companies.
So, Fiance set out to validate his idea. First, for his senior thesis, he compiled the largest database ever on Cal startups and found results showing Berkeley being amongst the very best ecosystems for new ventures. After graduation, he also worked for CrunchFund where Berkeley-sourced startups performed on par with the best opportunities in Silicon Valley. Finally, Fiance held over 500 meetings with alumni to gain feedback and source potential investors for The House Fund.
PitchBook’s list of most successful campus startup ecosystems
Fiance decided that a dedicated vc startup fund for Berkeley was a good idea indeed and has already found many that are excited to invest in his idea, including Sherpa Ventures Managing Partner Shervin Pishevar, Redpoint Ventures Managing Partner Jeff Brody, True Ventures Founder John Burke, and Cota Capital Founder Bobby Yazdani. Fiance is dedicated to making the House Fund work and also told medium.com to watch out for an announcement coming soon about contributing a significant amount of House Fund returns back into the ecosystem.
Ready to apply? Fiance has been working with the startup ecosystem at Cal since he was a student and is ready to invest in Cal companies through the House Fund, “I have spent the last 5 years working with these organizations [in the Berkeley startup ecosystem] and others to foster entrepreneurship and am excited to continue doing so to invest in and support great entrepreneurs. I have already invested in startups from SCET and Skydeck.” Fiance said explaining how companies can get started with the House Fund, “Students, faculty, or alumni with a startup seeking funding should reach out to us at thehouse.fund and fill out the I’m a Founder form.” Besides founders, the House Fund is also currently seeking new investors and mentors.
Fiance also mentioned the influence that the Sutardja Center (SCET) and Managing Director Ken Singer had in helping him on his path to entrepreneurship, “I am hugely grateful for the support Ken and SCET have provided me. I took many SCET classes and completed the certification. Some of my favorites were Ken Singer’s IEOR 190E and Jon Burgstone’s IEOR 191, where I started a company that was backed by the Foundry and Skydeck. Ken has been a great mentor to me and many entrepreneurs I know. SCET is a great place to start up.”
It will be great to watch more startups get the early support they need to launch great companies from Berkeley.