Unusual Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm based in California’s Menlo Park, is opening a Boston outpost.
Lars Albright joined the firm earlier this month as a Boston-based general partner. Albright is the former co-founder and CEO of Boston-based SessionM Inc., acquired by Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) in 2019.
For Albright, 47, this is his first time as a general partner at a professional investment firm, though he’s been an active angel investor in the Boston ecosystem — with over 30 investments over the past decade, he said in an interview.
The Boston area “is a very active market right now, with early-stage businesses being started at a rapid pace,” he said.
Unusual Ventures was co-founded in 2018 by John Vrionis, a Harvard University alum and former general partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Jyoti Bansal, founder of app intelligence company AppDynamics. The firm currently manages more than $590 million of committed capital across two funds, according to a spokesperson. Its Boston-based portfolio includes Goldcast and Databento.
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Early-stage startups had a record-shattering year of funding last year. Median deal size and pre-money valuation reached $10 million and $46 million, respectively, according to a recent report by PitchBook.
In Boston, investors focusing on the early- and seed-stage VC funding are abundant, from Pillar VC to NextView Ventures. Albright said Unusual Ventures is betting on its approach of “improving the odds of success” of its portfolio companies by providing a set of resources including workshops and executive coaching, plus a founder-services platform in which companies can find support around recruiting, sales, marketing and community building.
“I would have loved this when I was an early founder building a business, just trying to figure things out,” Albright said.
In Boston, Unusual Ventures plans to cut checks that are typically between $1 million and $10 million, with a focus on the seed stage and up to the Series A level. Areas of interest are enterprise and consumer software, fintech and marketplaces.
The new office, located at 341 Newbury St. in Back Bay, is slated to open its doors this spring, according to Albright. Sarah Leary, an existing general partner and co-founder of Nextdoor, will join Albright in the Boston office, which is also recruiting for a senior associate.
The firm has no target as for the number of investment in the Boston area this year, Albright said.
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