Announcing Maiden Lane II
Accomplice launches Angel Funds in partnership with AngelList — putting operator angels into business as VCs
Accomplice first invested in AngelList in January 2011. We believed that the Naval and Nivi combination was something special and saw the potential to use their platform as the operating system for our business. It’s been an incredible partnership: AngelList is symbiotic with our key tenets of leveraging software and harnessing community, and they have pushed our thinking along our journey.
Since our initial investment, we became the first institutional backer to Syndicate Leads through our Boston Syndicates (BOSS) program in 2013. Then we partnered with our LPs in 2014 to launch Maiden Lane, the first fund built on AngelList. Today, we’re announcing the next chapter of Maiden Lane: a $35M fund dedicated to backing ~30 operator angels over the next two years. By doing so, we are building on our knowledge and making the first commitment to AngelList’s new offering, Angel Funds. Naval is announcing Angel Funds this week at TechCrunch Disrupt, along with Maiden Lane II.
Maiden Lane II is the culmination of our learnings on the platform. It’s a $35m fund that will put ~30 operator angels into business with micro VC funds over the next two years. A complement to Syndicates, Angel Funds empower Syndicate leads to launch their own venture funds through a portfolio of startups instead of on a deal-by-deal basis. These leads are founders and operators with full time gigs. They are committed to the concept of founders backing founders. They want to pay it forward and help their peers.
Most of the best syndicate leads on AngelList aren’t celebrity super angels but scrappy, young-ish founders who haven’t made lots of money. Many have been wronged by bad investors and want to help their peers avoid the same fate. All of them are curious and competitive. None of these leads want the hassle of operating a VC fund with traditional back office responsibilities like accounting, LP reporting, legal, and compliance, but all of them want to mentor, invest in, and help other early-stage founders who face challenges that they themselves have tackled. These leads are impressive individuals like Mike Viscuso, Rick Marini, Ryan Hoover, and Zach Coelius.
We at Accomplice believe in founders backing founders and allowing individuals to get compensated for their valuable mentorship. That was the original mission when we launched Boston Syndicates (BOSS) in 2013 with the philosophy of catalyzing early-stage innovations that started in New England. BOSS was the first syndicate at scale on AngelList. Since inception, BOSS has invested in 46 companies behind 27 syndicate leads. Some of the promising companies include Lovepop, Drizly, Crayon, Klaviyo, and TVision Insights.
MaidenLane I had the same philosophy of BOSS but in a separate vehicle and with a more diverse geographic scope. MaidenLane I was the first online venture fund on AngelList. We invested in 300 companies across 125 syndicates. Some of the winners and emerging leaders include Cruise Automation, Branch, Clutter, Teachable, Opendoor, and Casper. Most importantly, MaidenLane I taught us what makes angels successful.
Accomplice is proud of our history of industry firsts in partnership with AngelList and could not be more committed to helping our initial cohort of operator angels succeed in their investment and mentoring efforts. It’s an uncertain but promising future. We’re continuing to tweak the craft of venture with software and community to build companies that matter, built upon the incredible amount we’ve already learned.
Accomplice (FKA Atlas Venture) is a tech VC firm with an open source approach to venture. Through platforms like AngelList, Boston Syndicates, and Maiden Lane, Accomplice harnesses the community to empower and fund the best founders. We invest in extraordinary people with big ideas across many industries, including cybersecurity, eSports, data analytics, SMB class software, emerging hardware platforms, and marketplaces.
