Established in 2020, and headquartered in New York, United States, Operator Partners invests in early-stage technology companies and founders. The firm invests in technology companies across Pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A and prefers to invest alongside a lead VC check; if there is no lead yet, they help the founder find one. The firm does not take board seats.
Operator Partners raised a total of $1.8M in a single venture fund, Operator Partners. This fund was announced on May 27, 2020. In 2021, Operator Partners made about eighty-eight investments, including that of December 12, 2021, when Sensi.Ai raised $14M. At that time, the firm had made seven diversity investments, including that of Sep 29, 2021, when Benepass raised $12M. Operator Partners's most notable exits include Bridgecrew and Weav.
Depending on industry and stage, below are some of the areas the firm commonly engages with their founders:
- Evaluating early product iterations
- Making introductions to early customers, domain experts, and potential co-founders / founding employees
- Helping with initial customer development best practices
- Product marketing and sales positioning
- Crafting the story—how the pitch shifts from pre-seed to seed to Series A and beyond
- Developing the target investor list and making introductions to potential leads and strategic angels
- Fundraising process—which firms to target and when
- Advice on term sheet negotiations—how to maximize round and financial terms
- Building a recruiting culture—making recruiting a competitive advantage
- Defining hiring sequence / strategy and interview structures
- Building out job descriptions and helping to articulate target role profiles
- Assisting in candidates CV reviews, interpreting interview performance, and advising on hiring decisions
- Interviewing and assisting close candidates
- Sharing job descriptions with the partners' network and referring candidates
- Helping to provide guidance on strategic partnership execution, governance strategy, and key term negotiation
- Helping with evaluating equity investments from strategics
- Supporting key investment decisions (scoping a program, balancing between services, tooling, and hiring, vendor selection and evaluation)
- Supporting team building (interviewing, organization design)
- Helping with information security architecture
- Founder compensation negotiations with investors/board
- Guidance and strategy on structuring investor updates, board materials and board meetings
- Independent directors advice and serve as a sounding board
