We recently sat down with Rob Siegel, General Partner at XSeed Capital, a seed fund based out of Portola Valley, to discuss founding team cohesion and the role it plays in a company’s success. Rob’s investment areas include enterprise software, business operations where computational technology helps automate/improve company performance, and computing platforms that shape both business and consumer behaviors. He sits on the Board of Directors of Lex Machina, SIPX, Zooz, DropThought, CirroSecure and ZipLine, and he spearheaded XSeed’s investments in Pixlee, Chatous, Neon and Breeze. Can you share with us the XSeed Capital story? We began operations in 2006 and were part the first wave of seed-focused Micro-VC’s. Our investment thesis is grounded in working with companies where strong technology is the core component of differentiation. As such, we gravitate towards deals where the market problem/fit is understood, but the technology is challenging to solve. While we tend to be very engaged with our entrepreneurs, we also know when to hang back and not get in the way. Our team is comprised of former operators, so our goal is to enable our entrepreneurs to make original mistakes, but also help them with missing the avoidable mistakes that we made in our pasts. Our initial check sizes tend to be in the $500K-$1MM range, but we are flexible to larger or smaller amounts when it makes sense. One thing that is unique to XSeed is the way that we leverage our talent, which includes EIR’s, advisors, and Fellows. Unlike traditional firms, these roles are integral to both our decision-making process and also to supplement our Partners in assisting our companies as needed. Aside from the core technology platform, it’s difficult to debate the importance of a strong and cohesive founding team as perhaps the most important key driver to the success of the company. What are the top traits you look for in founding teams? We actually look at the founding team very carefully before we make any investment. For us, we view the world through the lens of the team’s experiences and personality traits. Regarding previous experience, our focus isn’t restricted to working with teams that have run successful startups in the past, but rather we focus on where we find people that have successfully leveraged their experiences to grow critical skillsets and that are passionate about their domains. We love teams that are authentic to the markets they serve, are driven to have a huge impact, and want to draw in others to help achieve their goals. From a personality standpoint, we look for people who are forceful and strong, but are also open to rigorous debate and divergent viewpoints. We gravitate...
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