Our Emerging Manager Fund Checklist
To Institutional Investors, the term “Emerging Manager” indicates a venture capital investor with less than ten years of investing experience, fewer than four funds, and under $1bb in assets under management (AUM). However, the terms “Emerging Manager” and “EMVC” are often used in market today to denote fund managers from overlooked backgrounds, funds under $250mm in size, and fund managers with varied investing expertise.
Emerging manager funds appeared in the early 2000s when a ground-breaking theory on Founder Services began — delivering value add offerings to portfolio companies beyond contributing capital — with approximately 370 funds doing early-stage investing. Fast forward to today, Founder Services has since become ubiquitous, and more than 1,750 EMVCs exist in this sub-$250mm fund size landscape.¹
One thing that has remained constant is the importance of differentiating yourself as a fund manager. With our New Fund Manager Checklist, we outline how you can speak to investors while fundraising and answer the important question of “Why does the world need another fund like yours?”
Whether you are establishing your track record with a Fund Zero portfolio or refining your investment thesis to raise another fund, this checklist can help you define and articulate your differentiators. If you are partnering with a new team member or two in your investing practice, the benefit of this checklist is found by ensuring that you are all on the same page while fleshing out your unique value adds.
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By Shea Tate-Di Donna and Kaego Ogbechie Rust, authors of The Venture Fund Blueprint.
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Disclaimer: The providers, companies, examples, products, and services shared represent only a subset of available options and are based solely on internal fund manager conversations. These options are intended to be a general framework, not an exhaustive catalog, and should not be viewed as legal or tax advice, endorsements, recommendations, approvals, or rankings. We encourage you to do additional research into each category to find the resources that best fit your specific needs.
