Foundry Group

Foundry Group is a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet and software startups. Our passion is working alongside entrepreneurs to give birth to new technologies and to build those technologies into industry-leading companies. We’re centrally located in Boulder, CO, but we invest in companies across North America.
Our current venture fund of $225m was launched in October 2010 and is managed by our four managing directors. Collectively, we have over five decades of experience in venture capital investing. During that time we have invested in over 100 companies as institutional investors and over 50 companies as angel investors. Additionally, we have over three decades of entrepreneurial experience in founding and working in senior operating roles inside technology startups.
Unlike many venture capital firms that invest in certain geographic regions or specific technologies and sectors, Foundry Group’s investing activity is largely driven by a thematic approach. The themes we pursue tend to be horizontal in nature and are often driven by underlying technology protocols and standards or emerging market trends and customer needs. Rather than looking for short-term hits, we focus on themes that have the ability to drive a cycle of innovation (and hence provide multiple investment opportunities) over a period of five to ten years or more.
Examples of the investment themes we are currently pursuing include Human Computer Interaction, Implicit Web, Email, Glue, and Digital Life. As one might expect, we are always in the process of evaluating current themes and investigating new ones. That said, we don’t strictly limit our investing activities to our themes—great entrepreneurs with great ideas still count for a lot in our book. In fact, our thinking about these themes can be born from and evolve as a result of our investment in an entrepreneur at the leading edge.
If you’re interested in learning more, we have a blog post dedicated to the topic of What Is ‘Thematic Investing?’. You can keep abreast of the specific themes we’re currently investing in or are thinking about by checking out our blog category devoted to Themes. You can also get a sense of how our thematic approach translates into specific investments through our Portfolio Companies blog category.