Bee Partners, a leading pre-seed venture capital firm partnering with innovative founders at the forefront of human-machine convergence, announced today that Jocelyne Cooke, a venture capital industry veteran, has joined Bee Partners as the firm’s Chief Financial Officer. “I’m thrilled to have Jocelyne join Bee Partners and confident she will make an immediate impact,” said … Read more
In the summer of 2015, we discussed the commitment to good governance that we uphold at Bee Partners. Our philosophy is essentially that there’s so much uncertainty in a startup, that reducing any governance risk early in a company’s lifecycle only pays dividends moving forward. And while this practice is often found on the “important, not urgent” … Read more
It seems like a straight-forward question: “As an entrepreneur, if I experience harassment or discrimination, where do I report it and how will I be protected?” Emotional safety is something we value highly at Bee Partners. How can Founders, who risk so much already, possibly function without it? Yet so many cannot be certain they … Read more
Some say it takes five years and twenty million dollars to train a venture capitalist. This last quarter, I crossed that five-year mark. And while I’m not sure about that $20M number (my learning curve is still vertical when it comes to fund management, board responsibilities, and relationship management; perhaps it always will be…), one thing I’ve … Read more
We are grateful for our event partners and sponsors: Blockchain Capital, Blockchain at Berkeley, SkyDeck, Accel, General Catalyst, Scalar Capital, Samsung Next, CryptoParency, and Run8 Patent Group. We have big news to share: Bee Partners is hosting a series of events, the Frontier Innovation Awards 2018: Blockchain, presented by CalFounders, that will culminate in recognition at … Read more
Ask anyone who knows me—my capacity for optimism is off the charts. As a newborn I had a “baby bottle half-full” frame of mind. And yeah, there’s a substantial feedback loop in my career that has nurtured and supported that. Who would want a pessimistic venture capitalist, even if such a thing were possible? Especially … Read more
The financial valuation of any company—any deal, any enterprise—is prominent in Bee Partners’ thoughts as we consider, plan, and proceed with investment decisions. But what’s less understood is how much of our thinking is driven by a set of other values we hold deeply. We express these values in both business and human terms on … Read more
In May, we posted about the various characteristics and actions we expect from Founders at the preSeed stage. We described the size of the raise needed ($250-750K) to attract talent, explore a market insight, approach product/market fit and gain conviction regarding the company’s direction. We encourage anyone wishing to meet up with us to read that post … Read more
When you have a $50mm fund with a ‘Seed-stage mandate’ and you’re out there searching for opportunities to deploy capital visibly and quickly, it’s easy to rely upon shortcut ways of finding fundable opportunities. After all, we think that’s a pretty big fund for Seed-stage investing. Some of those short-cuts come through accelerator demo days … Read more
Founders, I’m with you on this one. Solidifying the Founder/Investor relationship is hard and I get excited about wanting to immediately see your new company’s logo on our website or mentioned the news. I get fired up about seeing a big name on another firm’s website. I recently asked Michael about the topic relative to … Read more