By: Ben Freeberg
MATH Venture Partners is a team of experienced entrepreneurs who are working hard to help build out the incredible venture and entrepreneurial community in Chicago. MATH forms deep and personal partnerships with entrepreneurs, other VC firms and industry experts to help build and scale companies through to successful exits.
For Entrepreneurs:
Pre-Meeting
MATH seeks out businesses with an unfair advantage in customer acquisition. Before your first meeting with MATH, do your homework. Spend time learning about MATH, who they invest in and who they invest alongside to curate a pitch that convinces their team why they can’t afford to not invest in your company. Think about how your business fits in with their investment thesis and why they would be a great partner for you.
In the Room
Explain who you are, what the problem you are solving is and explain that problem through the point of view of the customer. Why will your customers pay for your product or service? How are you solving your customer’s problem? What data points do you have to back up your business plan?
MATH looks for companies that ‘build better mousetraps,’ companies that seek to optimize current processes instead of teaching a new behavior. MATH goes after experienced teams with solid revenue models that can dominate established markets with a new approach. They also search niche markets that have a unique set of technologies, diverse customer base, uncommon team backgrounds and where other investors may not be actively seeking.
Post-Meeting / Post-Investment
The MATH team works with entrepreneurs (both within and outside of their investment portfolio) on their company’s sales strategies, operational efficiencies and connections with strategic partnerships. Regardless if you’re too early for MATH or may be outside of their investment thesis, the team genuinely enjoys investing time in helping young startups with resources and introductions. It helps that MATH is based in 1871, the Epicenter of Chicago Technology, a hub that floods entrepreneurs with resources such as mentoring, workshops, networking opportunities, and accelerator programs.
For VCs:
MATH consistently seeks to expand and develop partnerships with VCs in Chicago and throughout the U.S. MATH brings true value to each investment they participate in, bringing in expertise and rolling up their sleeves to work with their portfolio companies in an up-close and personal way.
For example, Mark Achler (Managing Director) was asked to join the board of Apervita, a promising portfolio company. Mark consistently leverages his and MATH’s expertise in the healthcare tech space to help Apervita become a leading health analytics platform. The team is excited to meet with other VCs to discuss exciting deals, thoughts on current market trends and learn about emerging industry verticals.
MATH’s Startup Spotlight:
Acorns makes investing easy for millennials by taking spare change from their debit and credit card purchases and allocating into a portfolio designed by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Harry Markowitz. Customers choose timing of investments: daily, weekly, monthly, with as little as $1 fee per month for accounts under $5,000 and 0.25% over that amount.
To date, MATH Venture Partners has invested in their Series C and Series D round. Recently, PayPal led their Series D round with a $20MM investment, bringing the total fundraising to $62MM.
Why MATH Invested:
Acorns has doubled their investment accounts since the beginning of 2016 alone. While “robo-adviser” competitors such as Betterment and Wealthfront have assets under management of $4 billion and $3 billion respectively, Acorns has 4x the accounts of Betterment and 10x those of Wealthfront.
While at approximately $150 million in AUM, Acorns has launched an initiative “Found Money” that partners with companies such as Dollar Shave Club and Hotel Tonight to offer bonus investment cash as a reward for shopping with them. Brands have reported having an 100% growth rate from Acorns customers. In addition, Acorns has leveraged their mobile platform as the main investing source for millennials. Acorns also launched Grow, a mobile magazine, focused on financial wellness catered to millennials where Ashton Kutcher and John Bogle have been the most popular articles and have received thousands of shares on social media.
Thank you to Samara Mejia and the MATH Venture Partners team for assisting us with this post. Please email Ben Freeberg at ben@alphavp.com to have your firm highlighted in a future post.