Avid Ventures announced launching its second fund, an $87 million early-stage vehicle that brings the total capital raised since inception to over $165 million. Avid Fund II is committed to backing exceptional founders who are building transformative software and fintech companies at the Seed through Series B stages. Avid Fund II has completed five initial investments in various sectors: payments, insurance, gaming, and data analytics.
Avid welcomed new institutional investors to Fund II, including The Mellon Foundation, Hall Capital Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, UJA-Federation of New York, Soka University, and CM Wealth Advisors. And returning Fund I investors include Foundry, General Catalyst, multi-billion dollar philanthropic family offices, and leading investors and executives such as Brian Singerman (Partner, Founders Fund), Rob Hayes (Partner, First Round), and Susan Sobbott (former multi-decade American Express leader).
Based in New York City, Avid was launched in 2020 by Managing Partner Addie Lerner. Lerner spent the prior decade investing at General Catalyst, General Atlantic, and Goldman Sachs, deploying over $450 million across early—and growth-stage investments. Since then, Lerner has been partnered with Founding Investor Tali (Vogelstein) Miller, formerly an early-stage investor at Bessemer Venture Partners.
Avid has expanded the team in the past several months. In July, Irene Gendelman, a former private equity investor at Silver Lake with prior investment banking experience at Evercore, joined the investment team.
Dan Deutsch also joined Avid in early 2024 as VP of Finance to lead Avid’s Finance and Operations functions alongside Allie Yurkevich, Avid’s Operations Manager. And Avid maintains close advisory relationships with Go-To-Market Advisor Kieran Flanagan, who currently serves as SVP of Marketing at HubSpot, Strategic Growth Advisor Jack Larson, who is currently the Head of Finance and Strategy at dbt Labs, and COO Advisor Jenna Pfeffer, who was previously Vice President on General Atlantic’s Capital Partnering team.
Avid pursues a differentiated Toehold/Double Down investment strategy, writing about $500k to $2 million collaborative Toehold checks at the Seed through Series A and up to $10 million Double Down checks around Series B. Avid also serves as a hands-on “Strategic Finance Advisor” to its companies, developing an insider perspective and earning the ability to Double Down into portfolio winners.
Avid also develops close relationships with portfolio founders by serving as an extension of their teams in strategic finance and business development. This dedicated work includes continuous support in strategic growth modeling and KPI dashboard building, warm customer and partner introductions, hand-picked advisor introductions, vetted talent recruiting, fundraising advice, and introductions to top-tier investors.
Avid has backed 20 companies in its $72 million Fund I, including Nova Credit, Alloy, Coast, Clara, Oyster, Basis, and Thatch. So far, Avid has made meaningful Double Down investments in Alloy and Coast, each representing concentrated, double-digit percentages of Fund I. Avid has also invested in and maintained a close relationship with Lerner’s General Catalyst portfolio company Rapyd through a series of SPVs. Select Avid co-investors include General Catalyst, Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel, Index Ventures, a16z, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures, and Ribbit Capital.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are excited to continue to back a new wave of visionary founders with this fresh pool of capital and scaled team. Given our combined experience from General Catalyst, General Atlantic, Bessemer, and Silver Lake, we are confident we have the right team in place to identify and partner with top founders, while further delivering our bespoke Strategic Finance value-add. We are grateful for the support from our returning Fund I investors and are delighted to build long-term relationships with this new group of Fund II partners who are proven backers of emerging managers.”
-Addie Lerner
“The Avid team has been incredible, supporting Coast with conviction from just after our Seed through our recent Series B. They are veteran analysts and investors, and have been critical with the strategic aspects of building our financial models to the tactical hustling of doing deals with some of our largest fleet customers. They consistently feed us leads – including our very first design partner, which was a plumbing business. I’ve invited Addie to all the board meetings because I deeply value her perspective as an investor and a friend, and consider the Avid team to truly be part of the Coast team.”
-Daniel Simon, founder and CEO of Coast, one of Avid’s largest Fund I positions
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Addie and Tali since the very inception of Avid and at our prior company Nova Credit. They were the first investors we called about our new idea — and they provided invaluable intel but also hustle to help us make this business a reality. They consistently give us real feedback and real help, on everything from cap table dynamics to hiring. We believe Avid is defining the modern operating model for VC and we are thrilled to get to partner with them!”
-Nicky Goulimis, co-founder and CEO of Avid Fund II portfolio company Tunic, and co-founder and former COO of Avid Fund I company Nova Credit
“I have enjoyed working with Addie since she first invested in Rapyd’s Series B when she was at General Catalyst. She has been instrumental to our growth from an early-stage company to our current position as a global industry leader. She can do “magic” with spreadsheets and CFO-like data analysis, and has been an invaluable board observer for over five years. Avid can be worth an additional number of multipliers in a founder’s next round, and I strongly recommend any founder find a way to get Avid involved.”
-Arik Shtilman, co-founder and CEO of Rapyd
