Opportunities Beyond Early Stage Venture

Early stage venture capitalists offer their portfolio companies far more than capital; they offer networks and knowledge that are vital to building strong private companies. Company-building venture capitalists offer access to management and customers, additional technology, strategic insights, and networks that maximize exit values. These value-added contributions are typically most important to seed and start-up companies, but there are a growing number of situations outside of early stage to which the experienced venture capitalist’s skills and resources can be applied to unlock major amounts of value.

Knightsbridge has invested selectively in non-early stage venture partnerships for two decades, typically when one of our highly regarded early stage venture capitalists has offered an affiliated fund designed to apply the franchise’s expertise to an arena related to, but distinct from, early stage. A number of factors have combined recently to multiply such non-early stage opportunities. This has prompted Knightsbridge to offer a separate investment option within our funds focusing on first money in, growth equity and multi-stage partnerships led by experienced, company-building venture capitalists.

While the targeted partnerships may have a lower risk profile than typical early stage venture funds, the existence of similar, exploitable inefficiencies means that they can achieve risk adjusted returns comparable to early stage venture capital funds.