Bryce Robertson and Gabe Hill have a long history as partners in Richmond's entrepreneurial ecosystem.
After working together over the last several years to create networking group 804 Club for Young Professionals and business management consulting firm V12 Consulting Group, Robertson, 32, and Hill, 23, decided to try their hand at venture capital.
The pair of Virginia natives founded V12 Venture Partners in April with the goal of supporting pre-seed and seed startups during the early stages of company fundraising.
Hill said the decision to shift gears into investing was born out of the lack of heavy-hitting VCs on the East Coast, particularly in the Central Virginia and mid-Atlantic regions.
"Right now there’s really just Trolley Ventures and NRV, which shows there’s an absolutely crucial need," he said. "At the end of the day, we have a different investment approach. We’re going to be a lot more progressive in the sense of wanting to bring that West Coast investment style."
V12 is aiming to raise $10 million for their fund that they'll then invest in the next generation of founders and entrepreneurs, Hill said. The majority of the fund, he said, will come from limited partners who will commit capital to V12.
"We have a couple LPs from Charlottesville, Boston and Silicon Valley who have reached out," he said. "While we haven’t raised anything yet, it’s not because we’ve had people say no."
Robertson said they want to cast a wide net in terms of the types of startups the fund will support, but much of the focus will be on Edtech, health tech and AI.
"What we don’t want to do is limit ourselves, but those are going to be some of the key focused industries right now," he said.
As for how Covid-19 has impacted the V12 in its first few months, Robertson said they haven't skipped a beat.
"When you consider the environment we’re in right now, it was great to see that not only did we have founders already trying to pitch us, but folks who wanted to set up meetings who were looking at maybe investing in the fund," he said. "You might imagine people would be reluctant about doing any type of deal during this situation, but it’s an amazing opportunity that people are really excited about."
