I am a Partner at Inspired Capital, an early stage venture fund based in NYC. We lead Seed & Series A rounds with checks ranging from $1m–$20m. We’re a thesis-driven generalist firm investing across all categories. I originally started my venture career as a seed stage investor at First Round.
I’ve been building Inspired with my partners for the better part of the last decade. We’re a small partnership of six with wide ranging backgrounds: former founders, CEOs, COOs, private market investors, public market investors, even a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce. We strive to be the first check partner to founders with enough world experience to be your red phone in both year 1 and year 10 of building.
I live in New York. I spend most of my free time thinking about how to be a great dad. Any hours remaining I spend thinking about golf course architecture.
> I believe that the greatest opportunities tend to sit at the intersection of disciplines.
> I mostly invest in B2B companies building software and hardware products to solve problems in vertical markets.
> The following statement encapsulates what I find most exciting: products that enable the physical world to operate at the cost of compute by driving the marginal cost of labor, transportation, and energy generation towards zero.
> I’ve spent my entire career working with companies attempting to will new business models into existence on top of technological platform or societal shifts. I find business model innovation to be the most fascinating puzzle in the world.
> I’ve found the best pitches are rooted in earned secrets.
> “Early stage” is about two things. First, proving a hypothesis with initial capital. Then, if hypothesis is proven, turning the result into a scalable business that is “legible” to downstream talent and capital. I view my job as increasing the probabilistic likelihood that both of those things happen.
> I believe in practicing a version of venture that is not scalable. I make 1–3 investments per year, usually into categories that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about. This enables me (and my partners) to operate with a degree of work-life integration that makes us available 24/7.
> These are the traits I value most highly in those I work with: curiosity, quiet competence, integrity.
> I get to inbox zero every day. My communication style is therefore defined by speed and brevity.
chris [at] inspiredcapital dot com