Julien Lepleux

‍Investment Approach: What are the key factors you consider when evaluating a founding team?

To efficiently work with founders and maximize our impact, we look for the right entrepreneurial mindset. Founders who are willing to share, listen, and above all, be transparent. Founders who want to surround themselves with experience in order to become execution-focused leaders.

What's your style and approach when it comes to working with founders post-investment? What are the characteristics of founders you've worked well with?

80% of our time is spent in the trenches, with founders. As a family office, we do not have capital deployment constraints, which allows us to focus our energy on our portfolio. We use all this extra bandwidth to turn visionary projects into growth machines and work as an extra department for our founding teams, covering topics such as growth strategy and implementation, sales strategy, supply-chain management, financial discipline and tracking, and management.

How would you describe your own personal mission and values, and how do they impact the way you invest?

We know it takes time for a founder to become a great CEO, so we are are to help them weather downturns, turn mistakes into opportunities and failures into invaluable experience. This is our mission and that’s where the fun is. Working hand-in-hand with founders.

4 core principles define our approach to venture capital: Grit and humility, accountability, resilience, and a narrow and methodical focus.

What do you like best about investing in NYC, and what’s your outlook on the future of NYC tech?

NYC's DNA has always been centered around joining people with different backgrounds, skillsets and cultures and extracting the best outcomes. I am a firm believer that it's currently one of the best places for entrepreneurs to generate and develop ideas that will scale.