View From The Office

I met up with Drew Glover, a general partner of Fiat Ventures, a VC firm focused on fintech founders, at Seven Grams Cafe near the Gramercy Park area of Manhattan. 

Drew was in town from San Francisco where Fiat Ventures is based. The firm is part of an ecosystem that includes Fiat Growth (a growth consultancy) and Fiat Advisors (a network of senior advisors) who provide support to portfolio companies. 

The firms are connected because the marketing agency, which has worked with 220 startups, serves as a funnel for potential investments. As part of signing on with the marketing arm, Fiat typically gets an option to invest at later rounds. 

Fiat Ventures set up a $25 million fund in 2022 and has invested in about 35 companies. The fund typically writes checks for between $300,000 and $500,000. The firm is planning a second, larger fund with a slight shift in strategy this year. 

We found ourselves nodding in agreement about how content can help raise the visibility of startups to connect them with investors, attract key employees and help attract customers. 

Drew is passionate about the opportunity to build brands. His key thesis is niche communities are incredibly powerful and content provides an opportunity to build them at hyper speed. 

As part of that, Fiat started a newsletter VC Uncovered that profiles prominent VCs. People covered recently included: Jeff Becker at Antler, Courtney Leimkuhler from Springbank.vc, Jaya Gupta at Foundation Capital and Tarun Gupta at Jump Capital. 

Drew said they are considering extending the “Uncovered” brand to other industries or topics, starting with a newsletter and possibly podcasts to help build “thought leadership hubs.” 

One reason it makes more sense now is that technology has brought down the cost of creating both written and video content and communities based around a person or idea can be grown quickly. Short form video content has become essential for growing those audiences. 

Drew said that the quality of content matters more than quantity. He said having 500,000 casual followers is less desirable than 30,000 who are actively commenting and reposting. 

If you want to know more about Fiat, you can connect with Drew via LinkedIn or DM me for a warm intro.