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.
Website: https://www.vertexventures.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jheiliger/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/heiligerj
Show Notes:
0:00 Where and how Vertex Ventures US is investing
1:32 How their focus has shifted since launching in the U.S. in 2015
3:15 The major changes Jonathan has observed in the VC industry over the years
6:31 What helps Jonathan and Vertex stay laser focused despite the quick-paced nature of the industry
9:29 Navigating fund strategy as the market changes
14:56 How Vitalize addresses ownership targets
16:13 How Vertex addresses ownership targets and industry trends
19:10 How Jonathan approaches mentorship and hard conversations with founders
23:24 Jonathan’s angel investing and advising journey
26:48 Where to connect with Jonathan
More about the show:
The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ 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 includes two main series.
The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.
The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.
More about us:
Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212
Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/
