Over the summer, three young VC’s in the area left their respective firms – Point Judith, Spark, and Venrock – around the same time. Not surprisingly, the tech community here in Boston was abuzz and their explanations about working on “a stealth project” heightened people’s excitement. Shortly after, it was announced that Rob Go, Lee Hower, and David Beisel had teamed up to form a “Micro-VC” firm called NextView Ventures designed to do seed-stage deals. Up until now NextView, has been quiet – their site consisted only of a splash page, there were no investments listed anywhere, and their investment focus was unclear. All that changed over the weekend as Globe columnist Scott Kirsner profiled the NextView founders, and their new website was launched.
NextView Ventures has already invested in nine companies; seven have been announced while the other two remain stealth. I asked co-founder Rob Go for a few hints this morning about the stealth investments. “Their respective launches are imminent,” he said, “I don’t want to steal any of their thunder.” The seven investments known to the public include Mojo Motors, oneforty, RentJuice, SalesCrunch, shareaholic, Swipely, and thredUp. The size of the new fund is reported to be about $15 million, though it’s unclear if all of that money has been raised.
Go, Hower, and Beisel have also put together an impressive group of Venture Advisors with six established Boston entrepreneurs and executive teams with different areas of internet expertise that clearly reflect the focus of the firm’s investment scope. The advisors are:
NextView co-founder Rob Go said in an email this morning, “We are pleased and honored to be collaborating with this exceptional group of entrepreneurs and angel investors. These six entrepreneurs represent deep domain expertise in some of the fastest growing segments in the technology industry and are helping us bring transformative value to our portfolio of investments. Most importantly, they share our firm’s ethos around supporting the startup community and enabling emerging entrepreneurs to build pillar companies in this region.”
Last week, we published a piece “What’s in a (venture capital) website?” The piece was authored by Fred Destin a partner at Atlas Ventures and is a fascinating read. Because of this piece I am forced to add my two cents about NextView’s new site.
The site is very clean, relatively easy to navigate, and has a social focus – Twitter stream at the top, and the social network profiles of the co-founders below. This allows visitors to connect with Go, Hower, and Beisel without even knowing them.
My favorite feature and what sticks out the most is that the portfolio companies are listed directly on the homepage – front and center. This clearly shows NextView’s dedication to their investments and that the portfolio companies come first. Not many VC websites list their investments on the homepage.
Last but not least, the ‘How’ section on the website is your standard VC manifesto, which talks about investing in great entrepreneurs who want to change the world. I do like a few of the references, but actions speak louder than words and we’re very excited to watch NextView emerge in the Boston investment community.
