Introducing Parade Ventures

Introducing Parade Ventures, an early stage venture fund leading pre-seed and seed-stage investments in enterprise-themed businesses. We have been busy investing out of our debut fund since closing our fundraise last year. Although seed fund activity has been on the rise the last few years, we know there is an opening for conviction-driven, lead investors in the ecosystem. We hope to fill that void by investing in first or second funding rounds of pre-series A startups.

So, why Parade?

• Focus: We invest in fundamentally strong, enterprise-themed companies
• Commitment and Conviction: We lead and co-lead seed rounds and are not afraid to be first check into the company — we’re in it for the long haul
• Partnership: We act as an extension of the founding team and want to be the first call for founders
• Track record: Operational experience as a public company exec, startup founder, plus 6+ years as an early-stage investor; invested in or advised 50+ startups

Focus

We invest in enterprise-themed companies with the following traits: recurring revenue, big margins, high lifetime value, and repeatable sales models. We’re building companies with strong economics and capital efficiency. Coincidentally, the public markets have been quite favorable to enterprise companies in the last few years, which positions us and our investment approach for long-term success.

“What is great about Shawn is that he understands the enterprise business and realizes that there are different flavors of enterprise software. Too many investors have their paint-by-numbers models and fail to understand that some enterprise software companies require a bottoms up model driven by trial, some require a well-oiled inside sales force, and some require a top down sale. Knowing we were a top down sale to F500 companies, Shawn rolled up his sleeves and helped us get pilots going through his network in our early days — these pilots became important foundations of the business we built over time.” — Fouad ElNaggar, CEO, Sapho (Acquired by Citrix in 2018)

“I was eager to work with Shawn as we navigated from consumer to SMB given his background in selling enterprise solutions to the SMB segment. His rigor and point of view around that side of our business has been invaluable in addition to his past experience as an entrepreneur, thus being able to approach problem solving in my shoes” — Eliot Buchanan, CEO, Plastiq

Commitment and Conviction

Parade Ventures leads and co-leads seed rounds with check sizes up to $1MM. We are happy to be the first check in and help form a strong syndicate of co-investors to build a group that can best aid the company to hit milestones and build a lasting business. We invest in businesses and founders that we believe we can see through to success.

“Parade was one of the first investors we met, and we were impressed with Shawn’s level of diligence from Day 1. He took the time to get to know us, understand our vision for the company, and why our customers find Sonar to be so important. We were eager to work with him as our lead investor.” — Brad Smith, CEO, Sonar

“Shawn was one of the first investors we spoke with. Before we wrote a single line of code, Shawn partnered with us to more deeply validate the market and target customers. He provided support, conviction, and intuition that helped us navigate the earliest days of the company.” — Bhavin Shah, CEO, Moveworks

Partnership

We are real partners. We meet with our founders at a higher frequency than a board meeting, hoping to share our experiences and operating frameworks to aid our investments on the margins. We fully expect to be a first call for our founders. We also have a dedicated group of advisors — founders, operators and executives from companies such as Chime, Nextdoor, Warby Parker and more. This well-aligned and deep bench enables Parade’s value-add to go deeper than other seed funds.

“As we were fundraising for and closing our Series A this summer, Shawn was on the phone with me daily to help navigate through the process. He was my go-to call.” — Will Peng, CEO, Northstar

Track Record

Our founder and managing partner, Shawn Merani, started his investment career in 2014, co-founding the largest (at the time) AngelList syndicate and an accompanying fund under the Flight.vc banner. Parade is a culmination of learnings at Flight, resulting in a refined model and an approach to better aid founders to execute on their large visions. Our current and prior investments can be found here. Over the years we have co-invested in some amazing founders, as well as alongside the best seed funds and early stage venture funds in the world.

Prior to building out his funds, Shawn was an executive at ReachLocal and a founder of the Liquidnet Private Shares Marketplace. We have been in your shoes. Our entire investment team has spent the majority of our careers as operators at both enterprise and consumer companies.

“We are first time founders, so finding a lead investor that has deep experience as both an operator and investor was a priority for us. We enjoyed learning Shawn’s perspectives from both sides of the table.” — Julia Hawkins, CEO, Cabinet

We will use this place to put out content that explains our approach to investing and shed light into the often unspoken nuance within venture to help both founders and fund managers.

Feel free to give us a follow on Twitter as well at @smerani and @paradevc.

Please reach out via email directly or via our website. We pride ourselves on responding to all in a timely manner. We look forward to hearing from you.