An Emerging Role in Venture Capital (draft)

January 2021

As I’ve jumped deeper into the venture world over the past few years I’ve noticed a new job title popping up in venture capital firms. It‘s called “Platform”.

With the startup and venture scene quickly growing, “Platform” is something we’re still defining in the industry and can mean a number of different things. In general, it’s everything but the actual investment part of a venture capital firm, and serves as an expansion of venture capital services offered to their portfolio companies.

This can also been seen primarily as a way for VCs to remain competitive by organizing, marketing, and more fully utilizing their value-add to startups. Investor time is always limited since partners (GPs) also cater to their own investors/(LPs)— Platform is resourceful with how to scale that out in a meaningful way for founders.

From the entrepreneur’s perspective and as an operator myself, founders are more likely to go with a venture firm that offers more than just a check. It’s a smart move as currently the phrase of today is “market’s super frothy “. This means more and larger funds starting to pop up, investors are more seen as a commodity, and the fact that founders can and should demand more.

I’m personally excited for this because founders can sometimes do so much to try to capture investor interest as just part of their grueling startup journey, and this Platform role proves some VCs are leveling up to impress as well.

Responsibilities that can fall into Platform:

Improve Deal Flow
Source Talent
Offer Founder Office Hours
Organize Portfolio Success
Organize Portfolio Management
Create & Execute Fund Marketing Strategy
Organize Founder Peer Groups
Engage with Networks (Partner, Mentors, Venture Partners, Scouts, LPs, etc)
Expand the Venture Firm’s Ecosystem
Maintain Partnerships and Service Providers Relations
Marketing (Events, Social Media, PR)
Maintain Website / Blog

Folks that usually do well in this role might be: former accelerator directors, community managers, and marketers.

If you’d like to hire someone in this capacity, I know a number of really stellar individuals— so please reach out with a request.