How to Stay Laser Focused in the Rapidly Changing VC Industry, with Jonathan Heiliger of Vertex Ventures US | Startup Investing
Justin Gordon talks with Jonathan Heiliger, General Partner at Vertex Ventures US, a boutique fund that invests early (often the first!) in enterprising founders who make it possible for new applications and services to be born.
Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Jonathan Heiliger (@heiligerj), General Partner at Vertex Ventures US, a boutique fund that invests early (often the first!) in enterprising founders who make it possible for new applications and services to be born. Jonathan and his partners have created $6B+ of value as founders themselves, and ’first check’ backers. Jonathan co-founded Vertex US in 2015 to empower the next generation of pioneers who are passionate about solving hard problems with tech.
Before Vertex US, Jonathan was General Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners, where he led investments in Lytro (acquired by Google), Periscope, Quora, and Ravel Law (acquired by LexisNexis), in addition to co-founding Coolan (acquired by Salesforce). He spent the previous five years at Facebook as Vice President of Infrastructure and Operations, leading global infrastructure, site architecture, and internal systems as the company scaled from 35 million to nearly 1 billion users.
Earlier in his career, Jonathan held executive engineering roles at Walmart and Danger (acquired by Microsoft) and spent several years as Chief Operating Officer for Loudcloud/Opsware (IPO then acquired by HP for $1.6 billion). At 19, he co-founded and was Chief Technology Officer of GlobalCenter, one of the first web hosting providers and the world’s first native-optical IP network, serving CNN, Netscape, Playboy, and Yahoo! as initial customers. He also founded Global Crossing’s venture capital group.
Today, through his role at Vertex US, Jonathan holds board seats for a number of their portfolio companies. Looking ahead, he is particularly excited about innovations that will improve how and where we live, specifically in construction and real estate.
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Website: Vertex Ventures US
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jheiliger/
Twitter: @heiligerj
Email: jh@vertexventures.com
Show Notes
- Where and how Vertex Ventures US is investing
- How their focus has shifted since launching in the U.S. in 2015
- The major changes Jonathan has observed in the VC industry over the years
- What helps Jonathan and Vertex stay laser focused despite the quick-paced nature of the industry
- Navigating fund strategy as the market changes
- How both Vitalize and Vertex address ownership targets
- How Jonathan approaches mentorship and hard conversations with founders
- Jonathan’s angel investing and advising journey
More About the Show
The VITALIZE Podcast, a show by VITALIZE Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.
Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at VITALIZE Venture Capital, The VITALIZE Podcast features interviews with a variety of VCs, angel investors, and founders, with a particular focus on the future of work.
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