A venture studio is a company that co-founds startups. It puts in capital and experienced operators, then builds alongside the founder from the idea stage. At ForwardShare, we work with three to five ventures at a time and stay hands-on with each for six to 18 months.
Quick answers
- A venture studio co-founds companies. It acts as an institutional co-founder with its own capital and operating team.
- Accelerators run fixed-length cohort programs. VC funds invest in companies that already exist.
- Studios fit founders who know a problem deeply and haven't started a company before.
- ForwardShare backs first-time founders who are domain experts, a few at a time.
What is a venture studio?
A venture studio is an organization that starts companies with founders instead of only funding them. The studio brings capital and a bench of operators who've built before. The founder brings the insight into a problem worth solving.
On a recent episode of The INDUStry Show, I described the model to host Nitin Bajaj as an institutional co-founder. I'd spent more than 20 years inside startups and scale-ups, including CLEAR, Justworks, Spotify, and WeWork. When I came back from a break, I wanted to be a hands-on co-founder, and a studio is the structure that allows it.
How is a venture studio different from an accelerator or a VC fund?
The difference is how early each one shows up and how much of the work it does. A studio is there before the company exists and does part of the building.
|
Venture studio |
Accelerator |
VC fund |
|
|
When it gets involved |
Idea stage, often before a company exists |
Early stage, once a team and a company exist |
Once the company can show progress |
|
What it provides |
Capital plus operators who co-build |
A fixed-term program with mentorship, usually a small investment |
Capital and board-level guidance |
|
Length of involvement |
Months to years of working together; six to 18 months at ForwardShare |
Usually a few months |
The life of the investment, from a distance |
|
Companies at a time |
A handful |
A cohort |
A broad portfolio |
|
Best fit |
Domain experts starting their first company |
Teams that want a structured push and a network |
Companies that need capital to grow |
Who should build with a venture studio?
Studios fit first-time founders who are experts in a field. Picture a head of sales, marketing, risk, or operations who has watched the same problem cost their industry for years. That person knows the customer and the workflow. What they haven't done yet is start a company.
On the show I gave two examples from our own work: a head of training at Domino's, and a head of security who wants to take on Alzheimer's and long-term care. Both know their problem from the inside.
A repeat founder who already has a team and funding in place will get less from a studio. An accelerator or a seed round is usually the better route there.
Why does the studio model matter more now that AI makes building easier?
Building a technology company is easier than it has ever been. Building the wrong thing is more expensive than ever. Speed helps only when the problem is real, and domain experts are the people most likely to know which problems are.
That's the bet behind pairing them with expert operators. The founder supplies years of pattern recognition in one industry. Operators who've already run the function the venture needs next supply the execution.
How does ForwardShare's venture studio work?
ForwardShare goes deep on a small number of ventures. Four things define the model.
- A short list. We work with three to five ventures at a time. Mega funds place hundreds of bets, and we'd rather know each company closely.
- Long involvement. Support runs six to 18 months of hands-on work, well past a few advisory calls.
- A vetted expert network. Our first months went into more than 1,000 conversations with experienced operators. The network that came out of those conversations is who our ventures build with.
- Capital alongside the work. Founders get funding and operators from the same partner, so the people advising the company are also invested in it.
The network exists because careers are changing too. I call it the age of agency: experts are choosing flexible ways to work, including co-building, co-founding, co-partnering, and co-investing.
Vish Rao Dumpeti
FSV Mindshare · Forward Share Ventures
