“Why get a check when you could get a checkbook?” - Naval Ravikant
That’s the sentiment powering Spearhead, a bold new approach to venture started by AngelList co-founder Naval and Accomplice founder, Jeff Fagnan. Spearhead was founded on the notion that startup founders make the best investors, and companies founded by a team with both founder and investor experience
have a sort of startup superpower. 🔥
Spearhead launched in 2017 and originally provided founders with $200,000 in investment capital from its first fund. This week the firm announced that it plans to give its founders 5x more capital to play with — $1 million to 15 founders, to be exact.
How it actually works: This group of founders will get their own fund so they can learn the craft of angel investing to increase their chance of future success. To be eligible to become a Spearhead “lead,” you must live in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston or New York City and run (or very recently have run) a startup. Once a founder goes through the two-year program, he or she can also apply for $10 million (to invest) after graduation. 35 founders have completed the program so far, and Spearhead just
opened up applications for its third cohort.
The Spearhead leads have invested in 160 companies to date, including startups like
ZeroDown,
Cloosiv,
O.school,
PopSQL,
Sword Health,
Superplastic,
Height,
AirGarage,
Scythe and
Altitude Networks.
With infrastructure like Spearhead, AngelList, and
scout networks available, there’s more early-stage investors than ever. If you’re interested in learning the investing ropes,
this is a good guide to understanding how early-stage funding works and this will teach you
how to invest.
How to you make crypto interesting for Gen Z? Let them buy V-Bucks with bitcoin and make it a true-crime podcast. 💯
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