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Image Credits:Charley Ma and Mahdi Raza / Exponent Founders Capital
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Exponent Founders Capital , an early - point speculation firm founded by alumna of startup such as Plaid , Robinhood and Ramp , has conclude on $ 75 million in capital commitment , TechCrunch is the first to report .
The firm , which is emerging from stealth today , raised $ 50 million for its first store in November of 2021 .
manage Partners Charley Ma and Mahdi Raza co - founded Exponent after receive whileMa was leading fintech maturation at Plaid , and Raza was lead increment and payments at Robinhood . At the sentence , Robinhood was one of Plaid ’s largest client , so the pair often found themselves on opposite position of the negotiating table .
The pair put separately as holy man before teaming up to commence their own speculation firm .
Exponent , which centre on enterprise SaaS , fintech , base and GTM ( go to grocery store ) software company , invested in about 40 startup out of its first fund . Among those startup are Apollo.io ( whichraised $ 100 million at a $ 1.6 billion valuationin August ) , observability platform Chronosphere ( whichraised $ 115 million at a $ 1.6 billion valuationin January ) and effectual - technical school inauguration EvenUp ( whichraised $ 50.5 millionin June ) .
The firm has already had some exits , as well , includingsoftware startup Tactic being sell to TaxBitearlier this yr and other deals Ma says will be disclosed “ soon . ” As saint investors , the pair backed the the likes of of Modern Treasury , Unit , Moov , Lithic , Persona , Stytch and Persona , among others .
Ma was one of the first business hires at Plaid where he lead the fintech and developer sales vertical in San Francisco and helped build out the society ’s New York office . subsequently , he was one of the first business hires at expense direction startup Ramp and helped found its corporate card as that inauguration ’s chief of growth . More latterly , Ma serve as the headspring of maturation at Alloy , an indistinguishability and risk infrastructure program for financial mental institution .
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Raza became an operator after theatrical role in fintech and engineering science investment banking at Evercore and commit at GIC . He work in growth and payments at Robinhood before joining Stytch to leave early maturation there .
“ A big shift for us in investment firm one was moving upwards in possession from our distinctive ‘ friendly’-sized saint check , to being one of the large investor in the round , to outright result and pricing early - stage rounds , ” he told TechCrunch . In fact , when investing out of its first fund in 2023 , the firm take or co - lead the rounds of all the companies in which it invested .
Investment thesis
Exponent ’s confirmation sizing bet on the circle dynamic , but can range from $ 500,000 to $ 5 million . Ma said . The firm drive for minimal 5 % to 10 % ownership in the companies in which it game .
Seventy - five percent of the firm ’s Modern investment company will be used toward investing at the former stage , including pre - seed rhythm . The rest is reserved for follow - on investing . Exponent is focused on investing in the U.S. and Europe .
“ We are a thematically focused , Renaissance man firm covering all parts of endeavour computer software — admit erect AI , substructure and applied AI — and fintech and payments , ” Ma said . “ In particular , we ’re excite by the opportunity for service and production as computer software , build core necessary workflows across client experiences in many land . ”
“ Over meter , we ’ll keep on to add new theme into our arsenal — as an example , lately we ’ve been going deep into legal services , pharmaceutic work flow and sum banking base , ” he added .
Lessons learned
The brace think their backgrounds as both operator and holy person investors gives them an sharpness as investors .
“ The most significant lesson we ’ve learned is how to approach problems from a first rationale perspective . Every company that we ’ve worked for has conk out through dissimilar periods of outgrowth and each also had very different GTM motion , ” Ma said . “ We found that stress to apply a fabric that crop in one company , rarely worked directly at another and is in fact a common trap that many former executives and founders fall into when working with raw company . What ’s more authoritative is necessitate the correct question and function as thick as possible into figuring out what ’s blocking emergence across GTM , ware , squad , market , customers , etc . ”
Fundraising as an emerging director in 2023 was “ definitely not easy , ” Ma admits .
“ Everyone we peach to gave us the advice that this was the worst time to fundraise in the last decade , but we were starting to get pulled into a few institutional LP conversations , so we decide to kick back off our fundraise in earnest in April , ” Ma said . “ We were deliberately aim long term , nonprofit institutional investor for investment company 2 with a target of $ 60 million and a punishing cap of $ 75 million . ”
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