Today, we’re delighted to announce Sydecar, a frictionless deal execution platform for venture investors. By pioneering a standardized and product-driven approach to private investing, we enable thousands of new investors to identify and back entrepreneurs who are changing the world. Over the past year, we’ve been honored to serve more than 3,000 investors, participating in over 220 deals, leading to $350M+ assets under our administration.

We’re eternally grateful to our investors from Deciens Capital, Pipeline Capital Partners, Anthemis Group, and Hustle Fund VC. These investors have brought us to $8.3M raised to date, with support from angel investors and strategic operators from companies like Brex, Square, Venmo, Plaid, Remitly, Chime, and Allocate.

How did we get here?

As attorneys working in securities law and startup financing, we had a front row seat to both the opportunity and the challenges of investing in private companies. Equipped with this knowledge, we took steps to launch our own venture fund in late 2019. As we did, we looked to friends and peers for guidance. We asked for recommendations and best practices around setting up a bank account, drafting and delivering subscription documents, filing taxes… and everyone seemed to have a different answer. We found that there were no best practices — no standards — for investing in startups. At the outset, every single new venture investor is left to carve a path on their own. Many resourceful investors look to the Internet for guidance — from Twitter, to blogs, to Google search. They’re left to their own devices to determine whether the information they stumble across is credible and compliant.

• “Should I organize a deal under my own name or create an LLC?”

• “What is a registered investment advisor — and do I need to be one?”

• “Do I need to file Form ADV? Is this different from a Form D?”

• “Should I accept the provisions my LPs are asking to add to our subscription documents?”

• “What on earth are Blue Sky Fees?”

Fragmented, inefficient, and costly processes have been accepted as the status quo in venture capital, creating a barrier to entry for many passionate and creative investors. New investors are left to unpack the complexities of legal structures and tax implications, while juggling branding, operations, and investor relations across disparate systems — often with little to no guidance or support. As a result, some of the most promising investment opportunities go unfunded because of the pain associated with deploying capital. Even with the right education and experience, we struggled through every decision. It felt like there was no one looking out for our best interests as we set up our first investment vehicles.

The opportunity in venture capital continues to grow, with value creation increasingly moving towards private markets as companies wait longer and longer to IPO. Historically, only professional venture capitalists have been able to access this value by raising hundreds of millions of dollars from institutional investors and leveraging internal operations teams to support their deal execution.

Today, entrepreneurs realize the value of having former founders and operators on their cap table — individuals who have spent time in the trenches of company building and have gained tremendous expertise and empathy. All of this has led to the rise of new types of capital allocators, including operator-angels, solo capitalists, and emerging fund managers. But these new entrants to VC aren’t staffed with a personal team of lawyers, accountants, and bankers to support their deal execution. In the past, they’ve had to piece together a slew of service providers, consequently compromising on cost, speed, reliability, and compliance. They’ve frequently missed out on deals, stressed over lost wires, and waited on late tax documents as a result. We felt this pain firsthand, and that pain was our call to action.

Meet Sydecar

Sydecar is an onramp to venture capital, starting with an SPV product that allows you to create and onboard investors in minutes. Our intuitive platform guides new investors down industry-trusted paths that make capital formation and allocation effortless. While you’re focused on sourcing deals and building relationships, we’ll handle all of your back-office functions from banking and compliance to contracts, tax, and reporting.

Sydecar sits at the intersection of financial, legal, and technological innovation. Through our standards-driven, product-led approach, we provide access to tools typically housed within financial and legal institutions. By doing so, we remove the headache, cost, and uncertainty of back-office operations while establishing Sydecar as a bedrock for the next iteration of VC investing.

The road ahead

Sydecar is built to support the most exciting transformations in venture investing while reducing friction. Today, our core SPV product allows deal leads to:

• Configure investment vehicles with flexible terms and economics to produce signature-ready deal docs in minutes.

• Showcase opportunities to their network and onboard investors with a few clicks.

• Track interest, commitments, and funding progress in real-time and close in a matter of hours.

• Send deal updates and manage investor communications, while our suite of products handles the rest (from K-1s to distributions, interest transfers and secondaries).

Our SPV product is the first step of a journey towards an ever-expanding platform that seeks to accelerate shifts in private investing. By pioneering market standardization, Sydecar will enable high-quality deals, meaningful relationships, and smart, sustainable progress. In the coming months, we’ll release products that remove regulatory barriers from early stage venture investing, provide unparalleled flexibility to raise committed capital on your own terms, and offer liquidity opportunities with a fraction of the hassle.

Thanks for coming along for the ride! Here’s to a future of better venture investing.

Nik & Dave

P.S. If our mission resonates with you and you’re interested in joining our team or running a deal on Sydecar, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you!