For three years, the consumer crypto rounds we backed at SGV were members-only.
That changes today.
We’re now a group lead on Echo. From here on, part of our deals will be open, allowing our community can back rounds right alongside the fund on the same terms, in the same companies.
Here’s why we did it, and how it works.
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Echo is where investor groups back private rounds together. A lead sources a deal, sets the terms, and opens an allocation that members of the group can fill. It gives retail investors and angels exposure to early stage deals. Same round, same price. The platform was just acquired by Coinbase in a deal worth roughly $375 million.
We are not a syndicate that gets handed allocation and passes it along for a fee. Every deal in our group is a fresh round that we put our own money into. We co-invest in all of them, typically 1 to 5% of our fund size per deal. There is nothing in the group that we haven’t backed ourselves, with our own capital, at the same valuation you’d be getting.
20% carry per deal. Of that, 15% goes to us, 5% goes to Echo.
No management fee.
We could charge 30% carry. A lot of funds do, and no one would blink. We don’t, because the carry isn’t the point of this. The point is expanding our effective check size and helping founders fill their rounds with the right capital.
Revenue and traction - not a narrative with a nice deck behind it. We want to find sustained growth.
Differentiation - a reason this company exists that isn’t “the same product, but us.”
Reasonable valuations - the kind you have to be patient for at pre-seed and seed. We’d rather wait for a price that makes sense than chase one that doesn’t.
Apps real people actually use - That’s the whole game.
The companies we back tell you the type:
tryfomo - 10,000 to 100,000 monthly users
Neynar / Farcaster - 100,000 to 300,000
Littio - 250,000 users
Daisy Pay - 100,000+
+more
Real products with real usage. Not slideware.
The honest answer is that it’s better for the companies we back.
When a founder’s round fills up with people who use the product and want them to win, the cap table starts being a distribution channel of people who’ll show up.
You’d be in good company. SGV is member-managed, by people like:
Founders: David Espinel (0x_mist) and Jakub Rusiecki (jakub_rusiecki)
Members: brockchainn · pet3rpan · Suji Yan · twoirtter · mattigags · Lata Persson · abishek · pokiethepanda · Blake Gao · Cecilia Li · davidtsocy · eldar · Eric Tang · eric_rsno · esk3nder · evgeth · Re7 Capital · Gkas23 · dhadrien · blockchainjames · Takayama Joe · defikaran · sathaxe · vtes369 · lwsnbaker · leah_cb · long_solitude · lyuben · mmartinxyz · ncerovac · parzivalsong3 · myprasanna · 0xpratik · ryanli · Sandeep Nailwal · sidkal · TPan · bvajresh
That’s SGV.
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