As Rise of the Rest settles into its $150 million seed fund, the team is bringing on a new partner to help head up the efforts.
Mary Grove, the founding director of Google for Entrepreneurs, will be joining Revolution as a partner on Rise of the Rest, an initiative powered by Revolution to bring funding to entrepreneurial hubs outside of San Francisco, New York City and Boston. Grove will be based out of Minneapolis, where she'll develop the fund's portfolio and support their existing investments as they grow.
Grove joins Revolution CEO and founder Steve Case and "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance as partners on the Rise of the Rest fund.
"Mary's role in founding and managing Google for Entrepreneurs makes her an ideal and timely addition to the team as we focus on finding new investments and supporting our companies post-investment," Case said in a statement. "As we continue to expand our presence across the country, visit more cities on the Rise of the Rest bus tours and make investments, we could not be more excited to add someone with Mary's track record to our organization."
A native Midwesterner, Grove spent 14 years at Google and in 2011, she founded and launched the Google for Entrepreneurs program, which is an effort to bring Google's resources to places around the world. In her role, she launched the Google for Entrepreneurs global partner network and produced the annual Google Demo Day. Now, she returns to Minneapolis for her new role, and she will continue to run the Minnesota-based Silicon North Stars, a nonprofit she founded with her husband to engage young people in tech.
Grove's connection to Case, personally, runs a bit back through her work with Google Demo Day. In June, Steve Case pledged a total of $1.4 million for the second consecutive year to all of the participating entrepreneurs. But the pledge came with a catch: all of the entrepreneurs had to raise an additional $1 million in the next 100 days to get their part of the investment.
And Grove's hire comes at a particularly interesting time for Rise of the Rest. The team added Vance to its efforts in March 2017. And in September, Rise of the Rest secured its first fund at $150 million from the likes of Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the Kochs, Alphabet's Eric Schmidt, Ted Leonsis and more notable names.
"We're at a pivotal moment in the venture capital industry where we can move the needle on revitalizing the economic engine of America," Grove said in a statement. "I hugely admire the way Revolution is leading by example through their Rise of the Rest efforts, and I’m excited to dedicate the next chapter of my career to supporting entrepreneurs from a new angle."
