Earl Grey Capital is run by Amit Vasudev (Li, Twitter), Alex MacCaw (Twitter), and Matt Sornson (Li, Twitter).

We co-founded the company Clearbit, which was acquired by Hubspot (NYSE: HUBS) in a nine-figure exit.

Alex, a prolific developer and Clearbit’s founding CEO, was one of the first engineers at Stripe. The original concept of Clearbit was to build “Stripe for business data” with clean APIs, freemium/open-source products, and extremely innovative go-to-market motions (we literally wrote the book on it).

Clearbit became a preeminent “API-for-[X]” business with millions of developers/users, tens of millions in annually recurring revenue, historical revenue efficiency, and hundreds of employees.

To-date, we have spent over 15K hours working together and are colleagues, friends, and family.

Simply put, we know how to work together, complement each other’s skills, and get shit done.

<aside> 🔑 We invest full-time - and build full time.

As times get harder, founders want VCs with successful founding experience, are active or recent builders (i.e. are in the game), and can help them in both good and bad times.

LPs and co-investors want a VC who runs the fund like a hardcore business - not a side project - and only get rich if they do too.

Most funds, big or small, lack in the above - or worse, aren’t truly incentive-aligned with their investors. Earl Grey is the best of all worlds. Amit (managing partner) runs the fund full time and Alex/Matt (general partners) are actively building on the cutting edge.

Combining investing & building allows us to compound our access advantages, deeply understand new tech (like AI), and commit the proper time/resources to the fund & founders without the fluff or bloated management fees.

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Why we’re doing this

We believe there’s a seismic shift in venture capital and that we represent it.

Small funds historically outperform and founders want funding from other founders, especially in the earliest stages.

Founders now have the capital, stage relevant experience, and the tactical network to be significantly more valuable in the early sages of company building. The traditional VC moats have dried up.

https://twitter.com/auren/status/1651628754073002004?s=20

1. Access shouldn’t be wasted. We are flooded with high quality inbound from founder friends, have brand & reputation within the startup community, and referrals from our network of other “new age” investors leading institutions who value our early-stage expertise.
2. The internet is still young and in its relative infancy. The economy is continues to transition to digital, internet companies will continue to increase in value. It’s the best market in the world and we understand it more than most - particularly the API opportunity.
3. Capitalism is awesome, and remains the greatest driver of innovation and human progress the world has ever seen. Capital allocation and early-stage venture drive innovation and make the world a better place.
4. There’s an opportunity to do early-stage differently. To run the fund like a startup, build products, use proprietary data, and factor network effects into our day-to-day.