Unusual Ventures invests in Seed and Series A startups. The firm is focused entirely on the early stage journey by providing expertise with real, hands-on resources to help build your team, tell your story, and achieve breakthrough growth.
The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and was founded in 2018 by John Vrionis and Jyoti Bansal. The founding partners of Unusual Ventures, Vrionis and Bansal, previously built AppDynamics to a multi-billion dolalr company and provided funding for several companies which includes DataStax, Mulesoft, Nimble, Storage, Niciria, and Heptio.
Their approach is based on 'doing' vs. 'advising.' And we've backed this up with two major innovations for early stage venture - Unusual Academy and the Unusual Get Ahead Platform, both designed from first principals to equip entrepreneurs with best practices and hands-on execution building their companies at the early stage.
On May 15, 2018 Unusual Ventures announced raising $160 million seed fund and the official launch of the Unusual Ventures venture capital and private equity firm. The co-founder of Unusual Ventures, John Vrionis, made the following statement regarding why the company will be focused on making early stage investments after announcing the companies seed fund:
If you look at the mega-funds today, the model has really changed over the last years. Now the funds say they do everything from pre-seed to pre-IPO rounds.
Timeline
Funded Companies
Robinhood is a Palo Alto, California-based financial technology company founded in 2013. They offer free stock and equity trading and commission-free crypto-trading.
Harness provides a delivery-as-a-service platform for engineering and DevOps.
A software company that aids users with developing apps and games with real-time animation.
Winnie enables parents to search local child care providers, including daycare and preschools for their children. Winnie provides parent-trusted child care resources and community.
Styra is a Redwood City, California-based security company founded by Tim Hinrichs.
Associated investment funds
People
Andy Johns
Partner
Angi Psaros
Employee
John Vrionis
Founding Partner
Jyoti Bansal
Founding Partner
Megan Holston-Alexander
Employee