Demystifying Startup Funding in Las Vegas — Part 1: VC Funds
“Demystifying Startup Funding in Las Vegas” is a three part series that will evaluate several sources of startup funding in Las Vegas and Stefan Colovic’s experiences with them.
Part 1: VC Funds | Part 2: Angel Investors | Part 3: Alternative Sources
VegasTechFund
Who are they?
VegasTechFund (“VTF”) is the venture capital fund of Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project. VTF, which is a seed stage fund, invests in founders who are solving core human problems that never change. To my knowledge, investments are primarily in the form of a convertible note.
Why choose them?
VTF is the most prominent VC fund in Las Vegas. They’ve helped build a vibrant startup community in Downtown Las Vegas, which includes entrepreneurial resources such as The Mill, Work In Progress, and ROCeteer (I’m a big fan of all three). Their portfolio consists of dozens of startups, and their partners, including Tony Hsieh, are top-notch.
Stefan’s experiences with them:
I frequently worked with George Moncrief, an EIR at VTF. He’s their go-to-person who is constantly meeting founders and evaluating deals. George offers incredibly helpful insights, and he’s very blunt too (whether you like it or not).
Rebel Venture Fund
Who are they?
Rebel Venture Fund (“RVF”) is the venture capital fund of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. RVF typically invests between $25,000-$50,000 in Las Vegas startups seeking seed-stage funding. They usually don’t lead rounds and prefer straight equity investments.
Why choose them?
You raise money from RVF to gain access to the many resources available from a public unversity, including human capital.
Stefan’s experiences with them:
Full disclosure — I am the former CEO of Rebel Venture Fund. However, in my (biased) opinion, they have a smart, hard-working leadership team, including Roddrick Reed and TJ Wenzel. They’re also relatively responsive to meeting requests, which cannot be said for many investors.
Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about the Rebel Venture Fund.
Coloma Ventures
Who are they?
To me, Coloma Ventures is the biggest enigma of the Las Vegas venture capital community. In years of investing in Las Vegas startups and interacting with many entrepreneurs and investors, I’ve never met anyone from Coloma Ventures or anyone who has worked with them.
The following information about the fund is directly from their website:
Coloma Ventures is a Las Vegas based venture capital group with a focus on Internet based start-ups. We represent a consortium of accredited investors including many of Las Vegas’ most influential and preeminent business luminaries.
We invest in talented entrepreneurial teams and provide founders and developers access to capital for vetted and viable Internet start-ups in web, software, mobile, digital media, social, and gaming sectors.
Why choose them?
Again, per their website:
Our team has founded, operated, scaled, and sold companies, and has extensive knowledge and connections in Internet and offline business.
Stefan’s experiences with them:
None. If you have any experiences with Coloma Ventures, I would love to hear about them.
Next up in the series is Part 2, which will discuss the angel investor community in Las Vegas.
