Less than a year in and the Triangle Tweener Fund, an investment vehicle out of serial entrepreneur Scot Wingo, has 38 firms in its portfolio.
Triangle Tweener Fund made 16 investments in the quarter, bringing it to 38 investments since inception, the firm said Wednesday. Tweener Fund has funneled more than $2 million into portfolio companies “and we have $5 million committed from our investors,” Wingo said.
Wingo said he had hoped to be at this point “but until we got started, I wasn’t sure there would be this many investments we could do.”
“What I can say is I was pleasantly surprised,” he said.
Not only were Wingo and his partner, serial entrepreneur Robbie Allen, able to source so many deals, “but I also think we’re missing some still,” he added.
And that means an opportunity to build out the portfolio even further.
Wingo said that, for the most part, the deals seem to come to the firm. Half of the companies approached Tweener Fund directly, the other half from their network, including area attorneys. Wingo said the plan is to reach out proactively to companies he’s identified as “Tweeners” so as to get on their radar.
Triangle Tweener Fund takes cold inquiries from fundraising entrepreneurs. Even entrepreneurs whose ventures may be too early on to technically be “Tweeners” are encouraged to reach out – “we like to track them.”
His advice to early entrepreneurs? Understand the problem they’re solving. “Understanding how they’re going to get to product market fit, anything around that is super helpful,” Wingo said.
His pitch advice? Focus less on the details like which deck slide goes where, and more on the story. “The best pitches are the founders telling a compelling story,” he said.
The Triangle Tweener Fund launched last year, using the “rolling fund” subscription model pioneered by Silicon Valley-based AngelList. And the initial limited partners list read like a who’s-who of Triangle entrepreneurs – people such as ArchiveSocial founder Anil Chawla and Accipiter’s Chris Evans.
