Revisiting Rewatch
Last week, Rewatch announced their $20M Series A financing led by Andreesen Horowitz. Upside Partnership is both a proud Seed and Series A investor in the company. Our time with them has been both fairly typical of the work we do with portfolio founders, and especially unique.
We were originally introduced to the Rewatch founders, Connor Sears & Scott Goldman, by a founder with whom I previously worked. We’re a small firm with a small media presence. Our day-to-day work needs to stand as our marketing. These types of introductions are feedback on whether or not we’ve been supportive partners to founders.
My favorite time to meet with founders is when they are thinking through the fundamentals of their companies not when they are explicitly fundraising. It allows me space to understand what it would be like to work with a team on an idea — something which is equally important for founders thinking about taking on investors. When Connor and I first discussed Rewatch, he and Scott were moving forward with plans to bootstrap the business. Connor had reached out to me to talk through some thoughts on early GTM. The Rewatch team wasn’t planning to fundraise at the time.
When the conversations transitioned to investment discussions, we were the first institutional investor to commit to the company. This has been the case more often than not throughout the history of our firm. We’re happy to commit assuming “normative” terms or we’re happy to draft a lead investor term sheet. We have no ego about it. Either way, we go to work right away.
In the case of Rewatch, this led us to introduce them to the lead investor of their Seed round, Semil Shah of Haystack.
We’re not on Rewatch’s board and have never asked for a board seat. We’re comfortable building relationships and trust with founders based on the quality of our advice rather than the obligations of investment docs. We only ask that founders not be shy about reaching out for help — especially if it involves recruiting team members. BTW, open positions here.
And, of course, we help early stage founders prep for their Series A fundraise — lots of deck reviews, practice pitches, data gathering, and ultimately, introductions. This was again the case with our work for Rewatch even as their round was instigated by outside interest.
Everything above is what we strive for in the normal course of our work. What has been unique for us about Rewatch, is that our investment was the first time Upside Partnership had backed the same founding team twice. Even more unusual was the fact that we backed them twice in the same fund. Building companies is challenging work. Often times, great people will hit a roadblock. We understand that. And are happy to find ways to work with them again.
Rewatch is early but the traction is promising. We’re thrilled for Connor, Scott, and the entire Rewatch team. We couldn’t be more happy to support them.
