Director of Business Development & Portfolio Operations

Foundation Capital

San Francisco, CA, USA

Posted on January 9, 2024

Foundation Capital is an early-stage venture firm established in 1995. Our enterprise, fintech, consumer, and crypto investments have reinvented industries and defined new markets. For over a quarter century, our firm has endured, evolved, and thrived – with $4B AUM, 33 IPOs and ICOs, and 80 acquisitions to our name. Building companies is in our bones.

Our business development function is nascent with extraordinary potential. We are looking for a passionate and entrepreneurial BD lead excited to set our long-term strategy and execute on building a new function. We have gone from 0 to 1, and now need someone who can take us from 1 to 100.

This role’s north star is to deliver value to our early-stage founders and portfolio companies primarily through customer introductions. Today, this focuses on expanding Foundation Capital’s executive network and operationalizing that network to generate sales opportunities for our founders. Ultimately, it’s about fostering community between executives and our portfolio companies and creating value for both sides.

We strongly prefer the candidate to be based in the Bay Area but are selectively open to candidates in other startup hubs.

What you will do:

• Understand the nuances of our portfolio companies’ products and ideal customers.
• Foster connections, spark dialogue and deepen community across Foundation Capital’s executive network with a focus on delivering value to founders and friends of the firm.
• Grow Foundation Capital’s executive network for the purpose of customer introductions and advisory services to our portfolio while building the Foundation brand.
• Develop and execute programs to drive engagement from our ever-growing executive community.
• Implement systems-level thinking to scalably support portfolio operations, which includes services leveraging our executive network, as well as building and vetting vendor relationships (PR, Finance, Legal, et al)
• Act as a “matchmaker” who understands the priorities and needs of both sides of the connection (startup and established company); proactively drive these connections and maintain a consistent drumbeat of activity.
• Write a playbook for portfolio operations by devising and executing experiments on how to best engage with executives and companies in the Unicorn and/or G2000 category.

What you should have:

• Demonstrated success at building relationships with executives & founders, maintaining positive, productive relationships, and leading business development efforts.
• Strong ownership mindset and ability to lead projects independently – as well as comfort driving clarity from ambiguity and proactively building a function.
• Exceptional oral and written communication skills, with enough familiarity with technology trends to converse with senior technical executives and operators.
• 3-5 years of professional experience in a high-growth technology company, venture capital, or private equity.
• Competitive salary of $125,000 to $150,000 with a 15% annual bonus
• Comprehensive healthcare plans, including medical, dental, and vision benefits
• PTO and family leave
• Generous 401k plan

Since the first invention, humanity has advanced because remarkable people have pushed us forward. Across the ages, these women and men have been called different things. We call them founders.

We back individuals who want to nudge the world ahead in some way, using a transformative business as their fulcrum. Great companies aren’t formed from code and corporate charters. They’re built on a foundation of dreams and desires; raised up through struggle and sacrifice. For such companies to succeed, their founders have to want success badly. It has to come from the deepest part of them—a hunger to create something consequential, something lasting; a need to prove themselves, whether out of a sense of mission, or a yearning for significance, or a heart full of disobedience. We look for founders who believe—even if they would never speak it out loud—that the purpose of life is to be briefly extraordinary.

EEOC Statement

Foundation Capital is committed to creating an inclusive environment and a diverse team. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.