Early-stage venture capital firm Distributed Ventures recently announced the close of the company’s first fund under the Distributed Ventures banner. The fund closed $100 million in total commitments, the company’s largest to date, from an exceptional range of investors, including strategic limited partners – including insurance carriers, insurance brokerages, current and former insurance executives, and private family offices. The fund will focus on early-stage venture investments spanning insurtech, healthtech, and fintech verticals.
The Distributed Ventures investment thesis is to discover, invest in and rapidly accelerate the most promising startups in insurtech, fintech, and digital health that have the potential to affect risk in each respective vertical positively. The firm provides capital to late Seed and Series A companies while catalyzing growth through Distributed Ventures’ strategic LP base and the team’s expertise as former founders, investors, and operators.
Distributed Ventures was born out of NFP Ventures to help entrepreneurs demonstrate product-market fit and accelerate their commercial traction via diverse distribution channels. And as a result, their investments align with their strategic partners’ subject matter expertise, market perspectives, and distribution strength.
With the close of this fund and its growing AUM, Distributed Ventures continues to expand its leadership team and influence. In May, they welcomed tech community-building veteran Mandy Yoh as their Chief of Staff.
As Chief of Staff, Yoh will focus on brand growth and expanding investment opportunities for the firm. Mandy began her entrepreneurial tech career as the first hire at SpotHero where she led the community management of their ecosystem to help drive growth for the company. Most recently, Mandy oversaw the end-to-end experience for the global startup community at the world’s #1 private tech incubator, 1871, and the build-out of the community/platform function at a Chicago mid-market private equity firm.
The firm worked with companies across the U.S. and has led six successful acquisitions and an IPO within its portfolio.
KEY QUOTES:
“I am incredibly pleased with our fundraising outcome. This milestone serves as testament to the value we create for our founders and ultimately the return we generate for limited partners. This capital will allow us to partner with another set of additional founders and continue to expand our team.”
— Shawn Ellis, Managing Partner at Distributed Ventures
“The Distributed Ventures team DNA is a special blend of investing, operating and strategic expertise. To complement what we’ve built, we were seeking a leader with a unique background spanning early-stage operating experience, VC experience, marketing / branding and community building that could amplify storytelling around our fund’s brand and the great things happening in our portfolio. Mandy brings over a decade of experience building and scaling integrated marketing / community functions to create affinity within targeted ecosystems. We feel incredibly fortunate that she has chosen to join our team.”
— Adam Blumencranz, Partner at Distributed Ventures
“What attracted me to Distributed Ventures was the position of the fund and what opportunities are ahead based on the foundation that’s been built by their incredibly dedicated team. My expertise and interests are highly aligned with the team’s strategic vision and culture, and I felt there was a terrific opportunity given this exciting moment for the firm with the recent close of its fund. I have worked with hundreds of startups and numerous VC firms and was impressed by the extreme focus that Distributed Ventures places on operational efficacy and the relational component between funder and founder.”
— Mandy Yoh, Chief of Staff at Distributed Ventures
