Freestyle Capital

Delighted to announce I’ve joined Freestyle Capital! After advising founders on choosing the right VC, it was a unique & fun experience to turn the tables and choose a VC for myself in a new geo. I wanted a place where: (1) I respected/liked the people & was excited to learn from them (2) The firm had a strong track record & stellar reputation with the best founders (3) The platform would enable me to excel at early stage investing After meeting some phenomenal people in venture these past few months, Freestyle was the clear home for me: (1) Jenny and Dave have both been founders themselves and each bring a unique perspective to this craft, but I’m not the only one who thinks they are special. What I appreciated about them was echoed back to me from their founders, whether it was “Jenny’s candor” making someone better or “Dave’s wisdom and experience” helping a founder through a difficult time. One founder put it succinctly, “great investors and great people.” (2) The firm has an incredible track record and has invested in some category-defining companies such as Airtable, Patreon, BetterUp & Intercom. Their DPI (cash returns) is top quartile & decile–increasingly rare these days. A founder’s time is a scarce resource. I was blown away both by what founders said about Freestyle, but also the sheer volume of high profile founders who were ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice to tell me how fantastic Freestyle was. As an early-stage only fund, every investment we do really matters to the fund, and you feel that as a founder. Much of the time great founders do their thing and we get out of their way, but when it gets messy and really hard, as it so often does, it’s helpful to have someone there who really cares and didn’t invest in you as an option ticket for future rounds. As someone who was recently called a “pitbull in their corner” by one of my founders, I like to be at a firm where you can build this type of relationship and work incredibly hard for your companies when they need it. As a generalist investor, I’ll meet founders from any sector & geo (US/Europe), but I’m diving deeper currently here: -AI Payments – next Paypal for agents -Code Gen - directly, but also 2nd/3rd order implications for engineers -Models Outside Language – anything requiring its own dataset (hard sciences - atoms not bits) -AI-First Tech Stack – the new tech stack AI first companies get built on -Physical Meets AI – robotics or offline applications of AI -Future of Compute – from photonic interconnects to quantum, anything that step changes how we compute -Enterprise Urgent - against this backdrop, anything an enterprise will actually rush through procurement instead of POC &I then drop Excited to work with Joshua Gilbert, Maria Ramona Hannigan & David Bill! THANKS to Sonali De Rycker Luca Bocchio Joanna Rupp,CFA Matt Auxier, CFA Enrique Sarap Semil Shah Taylor Greene Ed Zimmerman David York & Chad Byers who made my transition smooth & enjoyable!

?? Exciting News: The Next Chapter Begins!? “To play the game is good, to win is better, but to love the game is best of all.” I love our industry and the people in it. It's been an incredible ride since co-founding Funnel over a decade ago. Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to see multifamily proptech from additional angles – as an operator, investor, and mentor. These experiences, while incredible, led me to hang up my founder’s boots. Until now. I’ve always promised myself that the next venture would only happen if I felt that unmistakable pull – that deep drive to work towards something that needed to exist because it was solving a pressing problem in a big market, something that felt inevitable. After many conversations and deep market analysis of the industry’s pain points and opportunities, I’m thrilled to announce I’m getting back into the game. I’m honored to introduce you to 100. 100 is solving one of the most frustrating challenges in the national rental market: fraud, a pain point over 93% of multifamily operators have experienced this past year. Despite the industry’s progress around technology adoption, renting an apartment is still full of friction, inefficiency, and bias. Our team is uniquely positioned to make a real impact—providing operators the tools to make decisions with 100% confidence while giving tenants a more dignified and trusted experience with 100% security. With that, I am thrilled to announce that we have teamed up with CLEAR. We’ve launched the first-of-its-kind Verified Renter Network. 100 and CLEAR’s strategic partnership will transform the process to make renting an apartment faster, more transparent, and, most importantly, fairer. Renters benefit from a faster application and screening process, while multifamily operators save time and money by reducing fraud and increasing payment rates. As with any startup, forging dreams into reality takes a village, and I’m humbled to partner with incredible minds. Some are familiar, like Vishal Patel and Matt Goldeck, who I had the great pleasure of working alongside for years during our Funnel days. Some are surprising – like Lucas Bourgeois, Michael Davis, and Timothy O'Connor – former fierce and formidable competitors, who were instrumental in scaling Knock. And some are longstanding – like Shawn Sullivan – a strategic voice pivotal in helping the company take shape. This combined crew has admiration and respect for one another that runs deep, and I’m eternally grateful to work alongside them. And on the topic of gratitude, today we announced that we have raised a $5.2 million pre-seed round to deliver on our vision. I want to thank our investors — Freestyle Capital, MetaProp, RiverPark Ventures, Contest Point, Joanne Wilson, and more. Your repeated vote of confidence in this team means the world to us. For those of you who want to learn more, please reach out at [email protected], follow us on LinkedIn, and get ??.

Delighted to announce I’ve joined Freestyle Capital! After advising founders on choosing the right VC, it was a unique & fun experience to turn the tables and choose a VC for myself in a new geo. I wanted a place where: (1) I respected/liked the people & was excited to learn from them (2) The firm had a strong track record & stellar reputation with the best founders (3) The platform would enable me to excel at early stage investing After meeting some phenomenal people in venture these past few months, Freestyle was the clear home for me: (1) Jenny and Dave have both been founders themselves and each bring a unique perspective to this craft, but I’m not the only one who thinks they are special. What I appreciated about them was echoed back to me from their founders, whether it was “Jenny’s candor” making someone better or “Dave’s wisdom and experience” helping a founder through a difficult time. One founder put it succinctly, “great investors and great people.” (2) The firm has an incredible track record and has invested in some category-defining companies such as Airtable, Patreon, BetterUp & Intercom. Their DPI (cash returns) is top quartile & decile–increasingly rare these days. A founder’s time is a scarce resource. I was blown away both by what founders said about Freestyle, but also the sheer volume of high profile founders who were ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice to tell me how fantastic Freestyle was. As an early-stage only fund, every investment we do really matters to the fund, and you feel that as a founder. Much of the time great founders do their thing and we get out of their way, but when it gets messy and really hard, as it so often does, it’s helpful to have someone there who really cares and didn’t invest in you as an option ticket for future rounds. As someone who was recently called a “pitbull in their corner” by one of my founders, I like to be at a firm where you can build this type of relationship and work incredibly hard for your companies when they need it. As a generalist investor, I’ll meet founders from any sector & geo (US/Europe), but I’m diving deeper currently here: -AI Payments – next Paypal for agents -Code Gen - directly, but also 2nd/3rd order implications for engineers -Models Outside Language – anything requiring its own dataset (hard sciences - atoms not bits) -AI-First Tech Stack – the new tech stack AI first companies get built on -Physical Meets AI – robotics or offline applications of AI -Future of Compute – from photonic interconnects to quantum, anything that step changes how we compute -Enterprise Urgent - against this backdrop, anything an enterprise will actually rush through procurement instead of POC &I then drop Excited to work with Joshua Gilbert, Maria Ramona Hannigan & David Bill! THANKS to Sonali De Rycker Luca Bocchio Joanna Rupp,CFA Matt Auxier, CFA Enrique Sarap Semil Shah Taylor Greene Ed Zimmerman David York & Chad Byers who made my transition smooth & enjoyable!

Startup founders, here are some great tips for pitching to VCs: ?? Be open and transparent ?? Show your passion! ?? Don’t be afraid to talk about past failures Being upfront about all aspects of your business will help you find the VC that is the right fit for your startup. We love how our guest, Joshua Gilbert from Freestyle Capital, sums up his firm’s approach to the VC/founder relationship ?? “We want 110% of you in this business because we’re going to give you 110%.” Tune in to the latest episode of #StartupSuccess to hear more expert advice from Josh. ?? #VentureCapital #startup #StartupFounders