While the Sequoias and the Andreessen Horowitzes of the world continue to grow, their influence on venture capital may move in the opposite direction as microfunds increase their impact on the industry.
Whether you define microfunds as less than $50 million or less than $25 million, these are truly the funds that enable the future of the industry. They help venture hubs get off the ground, bring expertise and specialization to the market and fulfill a role in the venture capital ecosystem that larger companies simply cannot.
They can also be credited with getting many of the great unicorn and public companies off the ground that we know today, as many of them received a portion of their first dollars from a microfund: Robinhood (Elefund), Coinbase (Initialized Capital , which was invested out of a $7 million fund at the time) and Flexport (Anorak Ventures).
I’ve written before about the rise of microfunds in the US, but when Sweetwood Ventures contacted me a month ago about its new fund-of-funds strategy to support nanofunds — under $15 million — in Israel, I was fascinated . I hadn’t realized that the microfund explosion extended beyond the US market, but Sweetwood’s general partner, Amit Kurz, told me it was one he had been following for a few years.
