Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California.Yuliya Chernova
"Seed Investor Freestyle Capital Churning Out Exits,"
''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', December 31, 2014. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include

Intercom An intercom, also called an intercommunication device, intercommunicator, or interphone, is a stand-alone voice communications system for use within a building or small collection of buildings which functions independently of the public telephon ...

Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a com ...

, Narvar, Digit, Betterup,

Airtable Airtable is a cloud collaboration service headquartered in San Francisco. It was founded in 2012 by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas. Airtable is a spreadsheet-database hybrid, with the features of a database but applied to a spre ...

and Snapdocs.Ryan Lawler
"Freestyle Capital raised a new $90 million fund and promoted Jenny Lefcourt to general partner,"

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

, April 10, 2017.

History

Freestyle was founded in 2009 by Dave Samuel and Josh Felser.Leena Rao
"Sweat Equity: From Co-Founders To Co-Investors, Freestyle.VC Invests More Than Just Cash,"

, July 13, 2013. Prior to Freestyle, Felser and Samuel founded two companies: Spinner, which they sold to AOL in 1999 for $320 million, and Grouper (later renamed

Crackle Crackle or crackling may refer to: Foods * Cracklings, the tissue remaining after lard and tallow have been extracted from animal fats ** Pork rinds in American English, pork scratchings in British English when served in small pieces as a snac ...

), which they sold to Sony Corp. in 2006 for $65 million. In 2011, Freestyle announced a formal fund of $27 million. Freestyle raised its second fund of $40 million in 2013 and their third fund of $60 million in 2015. Jenny Lefcourt joined Freestyle toward the end of Fund II and became an equal partner at the close of Fund III. Notable investments from the first three funds include

, Narvar, Digit, Wag, Betterup,

and Snapdocs. In 2017, Freestyle raised $90 million for its fourth fund. According to the firm’s website, Josh Felser stepped down as full-time general partner in the summer of 2020 to focus his efforts on companies that foster a more resilient planet. In March 2022, Freestyle closed its sixth fund at $130 million, making it the firm’s largest fund to date. The fund was raised in a month from existing investors.

Partners

Dave Samuel earned his bachelor degree from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. In 1996, Samuel founded and was the CEO of Spinner, one of the first online radio services, which was acquired by AOL for $320 million in 1999. In 2004, he co-founded Crackle, one of the first internet video services, which was acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment for $65 million in 2006. In addition to his work at Freestyle, Samuel is the founder and chairman of tech toilet seat company Brondell Inc.Benny Evangalista
"Bottom line means more to this firm,"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', February 7, 2005. Jenny Lefcourt earned her B.S. in economics from

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

, and attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 1998 she left Stanford to found WeddingChannel.com, which was acquired by The Knot, and Bella Pictures, which was acquired by CPI Corp (now defunct). In 2014, Lefcourt joined Freestyle and was promoted to general partner in 2015. She is also a founding member and board member of All Raise, and an angel investor in

Discord Discord is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform. Users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media and files in private chats or as part of communities called "servers".The developer documenta ...

, Minted and Main Street Hub. Lefcourt was named to the ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' “Midas Brink List” in 2021 and the "Midas Seed List" in 2022, as well as '' Barron’s'' “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance" for 2022.

Notable Investments

As of March 2022, about 29% of current fund companies have a woman founder or co-founder.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Freestyle Capital website
Financial services companies established in 2009 Venture capital firms of the United States 2009 establishments in California Companies based in San Francisco