Catching up with Brian Hollins & Aaron Samuels of Collide Capital
By Courtney McCrea and Sara Zulkosky, Co-Founders & Managing Partners of Recast Capital
Here at Recast Capital, we’re fortunate to work with incredible emerging managers in venture. To help showcase these exceptional GPs and their funds, we’ve launched “Catching Up,” a new series featuring individual profiles on the managers and funds in our community. Read on below!
We had the pleasure of catching up with Aaron Samuels and Brian Hollins, Co-Founders and Managing Partners of Collide Capital (and former participants in The Recast Enablement Program!). We talked founder guidance, Gen-Z consumer-minded software, ushering in a new wave of VC, and so much more…
Recast Capital (RC): Let’s start from the beginning. What set you on your respective paths?
Aaron Samuels (AS): I was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, in a Black and Jewish household, which is what first inspired me to share my experiences with intersectional communities through writing and entrepreneurship. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Washington University in St. Louis and received my MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business as an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow. I started my career at Bain & Co. as a strategy consultant, followed by product manager at TeleSign, before co-founding Blavity, the largest global Black Media company for Millennials and Gen-Z, as well as AfroTech, the largest Black Tech conference in the world. As COO at Blavity I was able to combine my love for storytelling, strategy, and technology, which earned me recognition on Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Brian Hollins (BH): I grew up in DC as the eldest of three boys. I received my undergraduate degree from Stanford University, MBA from Harvard Business School, and I’m a current member of the Kaufman Fellowship, Class 26. I’ve always been passionate about driving access and education to the Black community and other underrepresented communities through new tools and resources. I started my career at Goldman Sachs, and helped launch the Emerging Entrepreneurs Coverage group to extend resources and capital to early-stage founders. I’m a Founding Board Member of BLCK VC, the largest Black investor community in the US, as well as The Takeoff Institute, which equips Black undergraduate students with the resources and mentorship to launch successful professional careers.
RC: How did you two cross paths?
AS: We met at AfroTech’s first conference in 2016; we were both working on building ecosystems for the Black tech community — Brian with BLCK VC and I with AfroTech. From the early days creating those communities, we witnessed the passion of the incredibly talented entrepreneurs in our ecosystems and saw the tremendous impact of under-networked and overlooked founders connecting and building together. We agreed it was an honor to be stewards of these communities, but after a decade of standing up grassroots ecosystems, we asked ourselves: What if instead of hosting the community, we invested in the community?
RC: A breakthrough question. How did you go about answering it?
BH: We believe that founders closest to the problems are the ones most capable of tackling them — and often the most dedicated. So, we worked with those founders to deliberate on what the ecosystems were missing. They expressed gratitude for panel discussions and networking gatherings but consistently emphasized one need over all the others: capital. We were determined to create a vehicle that would further support these founders and catalyze their growth. That was the start of Collide Capital.
RC: How do you define your thesis areas?
AS: We invest at the pre-seed and seed stages and focus on three core buckets: enterprise SaaS, supply chain infrastructure, and a bucket we coined ‘Gen-z consumer-minded software.’ That last category references the software we believe the enterprise will begin to adopt as a result of Gen-Z becoming the majority of the workforce, versus millennials. We aim to incorporate what 18–24 year olds want and need into our approach to the future of work.
RC: How did you arrive at the model for Collide Capital?
BH: We started with $1.3M (in the form of scout funds) as a proof of concept that we affectionately refer to as our “Fund Zero.” We knew we would encounter biases and wanted to give ourselves the space and time to get it right. While managing those investments, we refined our diligence process and, most importantly, learned how to add value to founders. Since 2019 we’ve written small checks, but we never had the financial backing to play a substantial role for founders until Fund I. Now, we operate Fund I in a similar fashion, always making intentional choices and learning from everything we’ve done in the past.
RC: How do you identify exceptional founders?
BH: We look for people who have targeted opportunities based on their actual experiences and are determined to find solutions for the next generation. To name a few traits, we seek high horsepower (capacity), intellectual curiosity about the topic they are attacking, and deep community orientation around building and scaling both the product and their employee base.
RC: You’ve noted that a key part of your mission is to guide founders on their institutional capital journey; could you elaborate on the resources and mentorship you offer?
AS: We are cohort-based thinkers and community builders, and we believe it’s valuable to bring these tactics and skill sets to our founders so they can learn from and support one another — and help each other win. At Collide Capital, we guide our founders through several key journeys: fundraising (navigating venture firms, raising follow-on capital), operations (standing up GTM strategies, aligning on revenue forecasts, building sales teams) and culture (hiring right, building teams, creating community). That said, every founder has bespoke needs, and as a smaller firm (we’re invested in ten portfolio companies) we can be flexible in our approach and support them however we can.
RC: Huge congratulations on your recent close. What’s next?
AS: Thank you! Even with the additional capital and experience, our mission remains the same. As to what’s next, we aim to be part of a wave ushering in a new era of venture capital, one in which resources and opportunities are directed toward the most deserving, not the most privileged. We back a high-performing portfolio led by diverse founding teams who have the lived experiences, courage, and grit to create solutions for the next generation. And, we’ve structured our model so that founders of all backgrounds have the chance to build, scale, and exit a business surrounded by a cap table that prioritizes representation and diversity. We are committed to establishing a VC firm that stands for something greater than the sum of its parts.
BH: Over the next decade, we don’t just want Collide Capital to be successful, we want to see hundreds of venture capital firms created in order to support the next generation of diverse talent. As we grow our own firm, we plan to open more doors for others along the way and use the Collide Capital platform as an agent of change.
RC: Sounds like you’re well on your way. Any parting words of wisdom for new emerging managers?
BH: It takes 7 years to know if you are even any good at this business. Spend the first few cultivating relationships and showing the ecosystem, especially fellow founders and investors, that you intend to be as helpful as possible without expecting anything in return.
AS: There are incredible Emerging Manager programs (shout out to Recast!) that can help you get the basic blocking and tackling off to a great start. Building a firm from scratch involves so many moving parts; these programs help set your firm up for success.
Exceptional advice from an exceptional team.
Learn more about Collide Capital here.
About Recast
Recast Capital is a 100% women-owned venture capital platform that invests in and supports top-tier emerging fund managers, with a focus on diverse partnerships. The platform was built to drive returns and create substantive change in the venture industry. Founded by seasoned, institutionally-trained fund investors Courtney McCrea and Sara Zulkosky, Recast Capital leverages its deep network and exceptional track record to provide its limited partners diversified exposure to top-performing emerging managers, as well as access to a pipeline of the future’s industry-leading franchises. Recast also launched the Enablement Program as a powerful complement to its fund investment strategy; the program provides learning and development opportunities for emerging managers in venture.
