Announcing Character Fund 2
Today at Character we are excited to announce our $52 million Fund 2, which we quietly raised last year. With this new fund, we are doubling down on our unique pitch to founders:
We created sprint methods (including the Design Sprint and Foundation Sprint) that are used by the world's most successful startups
We make time to personally run these sprints with you, to help you reach product-market fit faster
We will treat you with character (pun intended!), whether we invest or not
If you're in the early days of building something new, we'd sincerely love to talk. Here's a bit more about what we do and how we do it...
With Fund 2, we remain focused on world-class technical founders using AI to solve previously unsolvable problems with software.
Our first investment in Fund 1 was Phaidra, whose AI control systems improve reliability and efficiency for datacenters and other industrial facilities. Phaidra has raised more than $60 million from Index, Collab Fund, and others, and is now working with NVIDIA, AWS, and other datacenter operators.
We have repeatedly seen the incredible potential of applying new AI capabilities to unsolved problems. Our portfolio includes Fathom, Inductive Bio, Extend, Reclaim, Orbital Materials, Weave, and other companies who have grown into significant businesses (and raised significant follow-on financing) since our initial investments.
But capital is only half our mission. New technologies don’t matter unless they work for customers. And that’s where the other part of our mission comes in...
Over the past 20+ years, we have helped 300+ teams design new products and bring those to market.
We do this with our sprint methods — the Design Sprint, the Brand Sprint and Name Sprint, and most recently, the Foundation Sprint, with more on the way! — working collaboratively with founders to rapidly prototype and test products, simplify complex decisions, and validate hypotheses.
These methods have become exceptionally well-known among founders and tech operators through our books Sprint and Click. We continue sharing our methods through case studies, resources, templates, and tools, and via presentations at amazing companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepMind, Google, Notion, Stripe, and more.
From day one of Character, we designed our firm so the three of us — the founders and general partners — can personally spend time leading sprints with our portfolio companies.
Our support goes way beyond office hours, board meetings, intros, and advice. We actually clear our calendars and work hand-in-hand with founders, leading sprints, sketching, writing, prototyping, and applying personal insights and lessons to their toughest problems.
We plan on doing this a very long time. Armed with a new $52 million fund, we're excited to continue our work with a few key improvements:
Character Labs is now our primary starting point for new investments. We run the program twice a year and accept up to 15 companies per group.
Our maximum check size is now $2 million, allowing us to lead and co-lead a select number of seed rounds.
As announced last year, Jake Knapp is now a general partner. Jake helped Eli and I start Character back in 2021, and his contributions are immeasurable.
Kristen Brillantes is now working with us as an advisor and part-time head of operations. Her capabilities, taste, and community have become integral to Character. We originally worked with Kristen 10 years ago at GV, and we're thrilled to be collaborating once again.
We love working with founders, and we're grateful to continue with even more resources! Thanks all!!
(You can read more of our story in Alex Konrad’s recent profile of Character.)