Forum Ventures is the leading early-stage fund, accelerator, and venture studio for B2B SaaS startups. Founded in 2014 and based in New York and Toronto, we’re on a mission to make the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible, and successful for early-stage founders. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Forum Ventures CEO and Managing Partner Michael Cardamone to learn more about the firm.
Michael Cardamone’s Background
What is Michael Cardamone’s background? Cardamone said:
“I grew up in upstate New York in an entrepreneurial family with traditional small businesses. After graduate school, I moved to San Francisco and joined a startup called Box as their first business development hire, which soon after went public. After Box, I joined another startup called AcademixDirect, managing partnerships, and helped grow their revenue 5X+.”
“After 6+ years in operating roles at high-growth companies, I decided to jump over to Venture Capital and started Forum Ventures (formerly Acceleprise) in 2014. Our first fund was $3.5 million, and we launched as a B2B SaaS-focused accelerator with backing and support from top SaaS executives like Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, Karen Page, former Executive at Box, and Rowan Trollope, CEO of Redis.”
“Originally, I worked 1:1 with portfolio founders heads down on their business through our program. Over time, our team grew and now we have several Managing Directors that play this role, and so today I am focused on investing, relationship building with our Limited Partners, fundraising, and building our company.”
“I’m also an angel investor in a dozen companies, including in early rounds of Flexport and Curated.”
Evolution Of Forum Ventures’ Thesis
How has your firm’s thesis evolved over time? Cardamone noted:
“When Forum Ventures started 10 years ago as Acceleprise, we were 100% focused on building a B2B SaaS accelerator with small cohorts and a maniacal focus on the founder experience. Our belief was that by becoming an extension of the founding team working on early go-to-market and fundraising, we could meaningfully impact the trajectory of a company. Since then, we have evolved into a platform with three strategies for engaging with early-stage B2B founders:
- One, our flagship accelerator program that has kept the same focus and values as we had 10 years ago–– small cohorts and hands-on support in those same areas. The accelerator now has a larger platform team able to deliver an outstanding founder experience post investment.
- Two, an AI-focused Venture Studio where we build companies from scratch alongside founders, from ideation through market validation, MVP building, customer validation and acquisition, first key hires, and finally, fundraising.
- Three, a traditional pre-seed fund that allows us to write larger checks into accelerator, studio, and external companies.
Our thesis for all three remains industry agnostic within the B2B SaaS space; however, we are excited about a few specific areas and therefore investing in them more often, including healthcare, fintech, vertical SaaS, vertical AI, AI infrastructure, and supply chain.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for your firm so far? Cardamone reflected:
“There have been so many but I’ll list two. When I first decided I was going to go down the path of starting a firm versus working at one, I told myself if I can get to $1M in commitments from investors, I would do a first close on the fund and announce it publicly to force myself to go all in. It took almost 9 months to get to that first $1M, and when I announced it, I remember feeling terrified yet exhilarated at the same time. When the first cohort started in our office in San Francisco, it was one of the most exciting moments of my career.”
“The second was an off-site we did with the team a couple of years ago. For the first two years of Acceleprise it was just me, and the years after that a very small team. Over the last four years, as our platform has evolved and our AUM has grown, our team has grown as well. There was a moment at the off-site where I looked around at the team and felt a sense of deep pride in the caliber of people in the room, not just because of their skill set but also because of their genuine goodness and how much they care about the founders and other team members. It was a fun moment to see how far we have come and how much further we can go with this team.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of your firm’s most significant milestones? Cardamone cited:
“At the end of the day, we serve two customers: the founders we have the privilege of working with and the Limited Partners (LP’s) that invest their hard earned capital with us. Through that lens, we want to provide our founders with an amazing experience where they walk away feeling like they had a true partner and support system to optimize their chances of success. We measure that with founder Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and have consistently scored 70 or higher for almost 10 years, which I view as a significant milestone. For our LP’s, what ultimately matters is driving meaningful returns in the form of cash returned and IRR’s. A major milestone as a firm was delivering this for our first fund, and we are now well on our way to doing it for our second fund.”
Investment Success Stories
After asking Cardamone about investment success stories, he highlighted:
“There have been many over the years but one in particular is a company called People Data Labs. They applied for our accelerator program back when it was just me. They were young, unproven founders who had just shut down their previous company that didn’t work. I was on the fence about investing but the more I engaged with the CEO, the more I felt like he had a special quality that would serve him well as a founder. We ultimately accepted them and they moved from Portland to come work with us in San Francisco. I saw firsthand how hard they worked to close early customers and build the product in parallel. We ended up investing more into their pre-seed round as we saw how well the founders were executing. They are now at tens of millions of revenue and their last round of funding was at a valuation that is 150X+ what we initially invested.”
AUM And Other Metrics
After asking Cardamone about assets under management or any other notable metrics, he revealed:
“We have just over $100 million in AUM (money raised) and expect that to grow quite a bit over the next couple of years.”
“Our first accelerator fund from 2014 has returned ~3X net in cash and is marked at close to another 3X with other liquidity events expected this year. The subsequent accelerator funds are pacing ahead of that fund over the same time period, so I expect them to deliver a similar or better return for our LP’s.”
Industry Focus
What are some of the industries that Cardamone’s firm is focused on? Cardamone noted:
“Our core areas of focus are:
- Healthtech
- Vertical SaaS
- Applied AI
- B2B Fintech
- Supply Chain/Logistics and E-Commerce enablement tech
- B2B marketplaces
- Future of work
Differentiation From Other Firms
What differentiates your firm from other firms? Cardamone emphasized:
“We are able to engage with early-stage founders with three different offerings depending on what makes the most sense for them, which in turn givesd opens the doors for us to work with more promising founders. Additionally, we have a larger team than most, if not all, traditional early-stage funds, which allows us to be more hands on in supporting our companies with early GTM, customer introductions and fundraising than most firms at our stage and size can be.”
Challenges Faced
What are some of the challenges you faced while working at the firm? Cardamone acknowledged:
“I have 4 young kids and so I have had to balance growing my family and growing the firm, which has obviously created challenges along the way. I had to become much more self aware about what I’m good at and what I’m not so that I could hire the right people around me that complement my skill set. I also knew that in order to scale the firm as much as I aspired to, I had to bring on amazing partners – and it is always a challenge to find the right people to work closely, build, and align with. We now have five Partners and three Managing Directors (out of a team of 40) that have been instrumental in our growth.”
Future Firm Goals
What are some of your firm’s future goals? Cardamone concluded:
“We want to become a top studio, accelerator and fund for early-stage B2B companies and grow our AUM significantly so that we can continue to back amazing founders throughout their journey. I believe we have built the team, infrastructure and track record to accomplish this over the next ten years.”
