A VC who raised $70 million in 3 months explains why he left a Valley VC firm to go solo
Jason Lemkin
But SaaStr founder Jason Lemkin makes starting over look easy.
After leaving Storm Ventures last year, Lemkin announced on Monday that he's raised a fresh $70 million fund on his own, in just three and a half months.
Lemkin says there are pros and cons to being part of a larger group, but he decided to go on his own because the VC investing game is ultimately an "individual sport."
"At the end of the day, investing is mostly an individual contributor sport. Even in venture firms, VCs mostly operate on their own," Lemkin told Business Insider.
That means VCs essentially have to find and qualify deals on their own, even when they're part of a larger investment firm. They may share the returns and help each other to not make the same mistakes, but the work itself doesn't exactly require a lot of teamwork, he argues.
"It's not a particularly collaborative field," he says.
Betting on myself
That doesn't mean every aspiring VC should go on their own. Lemkin is a different case, given his track record, having sold his last startup EchoSign to Adobe, and his brand power in the cloud software space. The SaaStr event he hosts is now one of the largest conferences in the space, drawing thousands of attendees every year.
Still, the fact that he was able to raise $70 million on his own, as the sole general partner of the fund, is an impressive feat. Lemkin knows it won't be easy, but sees being on his own gives him a better chance to prove himself right.
"The reason I'm doing my own fund is to bet on myself," Lemkin says. "And being on your own in an individual sport lets you run the table the way you think is best, right or wrong."
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