Charles Rivers Ventures

A Brilliant Track Record Isn’t Everything. But it’s the Perfect Place to Start.

Since 1970, Charles River Ventures has helped startups turn their ideas into real, viable businesses. Companies like Cascade, CIENA, ChipCom, NetGenesis, Parametric Technology, Sonus, Speechworks, Stratus Computer, Sybase, Vignette and dozens more have realized stunning success with the backing and support of CRV.

In addition to having one of the longest resumes among venture capital firms, CRV’s investment returns are consistently among the best in our industry.

Our contribution to your idea is more than just dollars.

Charles River Ventures takes a value-added approach to early stage investing. That means we go beyond simply holding the purse strings.

In fact, CRV partners have personal experience as entrepreneurs, CEOs and senior executives of emerging companies. We know what kind of help you need. We’ve been there.

CRV supports our entrepreneurs with innovative capital strategies, while also bringing the best resources and business contacts to bear.

The contact network we’ve built over four decades assures that CRV-backed entrepreneurs will have access to the top players needed to bring their great idea to its fullest fruition.

Four decades later, and we’re still finding new ground to break.

As time goes on, we only grow more excited about the possibilities ahead.

Every day we’re looking for – and finding – ideas that can change the world. Along with the bright, energetic people that champion those ideas.

Our greatest successes, we believe, are the ones that lie ahead.

We Don’t Jump on the Latest Trends. We Help Define them.

No venture or idea is too early for us. We take great pride in serving as deal leaders, helping our startups face down controversy or face up to courageous decisions.

Plus, we bring expertise in tackling critical startup issues: follow-on financings, hiring senior executives and developers, shaping business strategy, creating new product categories, and forming solid partnerships.

We Make the Numbers Work. To Everyone’s Advantage.

Our initial investment can be as small as $25,000, or as large as $5 million.

We expect to invest between $3 and $20 million over the lifetime of a project. This typically results in a significant but non-controlling interest at the time of an IPO.

In addition to initial seed funding, we generally provide leadership on second round financing as well. This ongoing commitment from CRV and depth of capital ensures that follow-on financings are done quickly and on favorable terms.

We offer proven experience and top-drawer contacts in these industries:

Communications & Technology: Broadband, wireless and enabling chip technologies

Enterprise Software & Services: Opportunities enabled by the Open Source movement

Media & Entertainment: New products & services enabled by the pervasive digital infrastructure

It’s About People, Ideas, and Money, in that Order

It speaks volumes that the source of our capital – our Limited Partners – comprise an elite group of non-profit organizations.

Whether a Mayo or Kellogg Foundation, or top-drawer university like Notre Dame or Northwestern, our Limited Partners do important work that we admire.

When we succeed with an investment idea, we are not only helping to bring about progress in the marketplace; we are helping world-class organizations further their missions.

In the same way, we have little interest in “quick flip” projects, and perhaps are unique among VC firms in that we don’t see our business primarily as financial engineering. We believe that it’s about people.

The entrepreneurs who bring their visions forward are literally the lifeblood of our business. We offer them the best of our advice, and push hard for our point of view – but we don’t dictate to them. We don’t talk down to them.

To our partners, CRV is their most enthusiastic supporter, and most constructive critic. It’s our job to enable our startups. Not second-guess them.

 

Opening the Doors that Lead to Success

The best idea in the world goes nowhere unless someone drives it forward — and people get behind it.

Turning an established market on its ear means winning a huge groundswell of support, especially from the people in the know. In this regard, Charles River Ventures offers its portfolio companies an asset worth more than money.

As a result of our decades of involvement in the very markets our startups seek to master, we are well connected with the visionaries, influencers and decision makers who will shape emerging markets, and define the winners in those markets.

It is from this elite pool that our startups find the key executives that will bring their vision to reality. Where they will create strategic partnerships. Win benchmark customers. Choose board members and advisors.

There is no GPS for the road to success. But we offer the next best thing.

The CRV Network in Action

Making connections for our portfolio companies is one of our most important tasks. In addition to the course-of-business introductions, we make special efforts to keep our network of affiliates actively connected. Some recent activities include:

Kiteboarding Clinic: Every spring we convene a group of VCs and entrepreneurs to hit the waves of Maui…
Check it out at www.maitaisports.com

Executive Roundtable Dinners: We think it’s a good idea to step out of the day-to-day once in a while, and just have dinner with some of the executives from both inside and outside our portfolio…

CRV Leadership Summits: Two-day offsites with our portfolio CEOs and founders, where we discuss priorities for innovation, explore where emerging technologies are headed, and share growth strategies…

Seeking Unexpected Ideas—and the People Bold Enough to Pursue them

CRV’s best investment prospect is an early-stage startup with a disruptive market-changing idea. We’re looking for opportunities where we can take smart, innovative founders and help drive them to success.

No venture is too early for us. The bulk of our investments have been to companies with fewer than 10 employees—many have as few as 2 or 3. CRV doesn’t require a complete management team, since we can often help in bringing the right talent to the mix.

The best way to get our attention is not with a 100-page business plan. A concise executive summary, an expense budget for the first two years, the revenue model, and a PowerPoint presentation are the materials we’re interested in seeing. It helps if one of our portfolio companies, or a member of our contact network recommends you.

Okay, we like your idea. Now what?

We want to sit down with you face-to-face, getting the complete picture. We ask ourselves, “Can this become a significant company?” We assess the capabilities and charisma of the founding team, “Can they attract the best employees? Do they have the capability to shift the direction of an industry?”

If we can visualize greatness, and are convinced that the founders share the same vision to create an industry giant, we’re excited. We use our network of contacts to gain perspective on the company’s strategy and key executives.

Our most important due diligence comes in whiteboard sessions with the venture’s founding team, brainstorming about the business’ potential. A small team from CRV engages with the company and generally stays with the venture, post-financing.

Unlike many venture firms, we don’t lurk on the sidelines waiting for a strong lead investor to step up. When we believe in a project, we want to be the lead investor.