After over six years at seed-led venture capital firm Accomplice, Boston investor TJ Mahony has launched a $40 million venture fund named Vinyl.
Mahony, 44, is the former CEO and founder of vacation rental marketplace FlipKey, which received investments and was later acquired by Needham-based Tripadvisor Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP). At Accomplice, his notable investments included LovePop Inc., maker of 3D pop-up greeting cards that was featured on ABC’s show "Shark Tank"; and marketing tech firm Klaviyo, which last year said it hit a valuation of $4.15 billion.
"We raised the $40 million in 40 days. It was not a long process," Mahony said in an interview on Wednesday.
Mahony said Vinyl is a separate fund from Accomplice, which he left on Sept. 1. He still works closely with his old firm, however: Vinyl received its first check from Accomplice and is based at the firm's South End office. Mahony also continues to represent Accomplice on the boards of three companies: LovePop, Postscript and User Interviews.
Mahony launched Vinyl with Travis Lowry, who operates the fund and invests, and Jake Cohen, who is working full-time at Klaviyo but acts as a "thought partner on various deals."
Mahony explained that the fund’s primary focus is on the future of "how people buy stuff." He noted that the way we buy travel now is fundamentally different than it was 10 years ago, and the firm will look at how products are going to be purchased differently in the future.
He pointed to his early investment in Klaviyo, first as an angel investor and again as Accomplice led the startup's seed round, as an inspiration for Vinyl.
"I woke up five years after the Klaviyo investment and have one of the strongest commerce technology portfolios in the country," Mahoney said. "And so it just seemed like I could take that franchise and create a brand specifically around that and then also kind of gravitationally pull some people in to help them. And the time is now: commerce tech is one of the hotter categories."
Vinyl already invested in eight companies, none formally based in Massachusetts.
"The whole game has changed. I don't even ask people where they're located until the third meeting because they were just on Zoom," Mahony said.
Anchored by Accomplice, the fund closed in late spring with over 30 entrepreneurs among its limited partners, half of them from Boston, Mahony said. Founders from Klaviyo, LovePop, Drizly Inc., Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W), Thrasio, Warby Parker, Postscript, Credit Karma, Drift and DraftKings Inc. (Nasdaq: DKNG) supported the fund, Mahony wrote in a Medium post.
