Contour Venture Partners
Contour Venture Partners, founded in 2005, is a New York City based pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm. Contour was the first seed stage venture capital firm focused on New York City and we have been highly involved in helping the ecosystem grow and mature over the last two decades. We are currently investing out of our newly raised fifth fund, Contour Venture Partners V. We also have three late stage growth funds that invest in the later rounds of our current portfolio companies – the most recent growth fund we are investing out of is Contour Opportunity Fund III.
Unique Opportunity
The Principal will work closely with the partners of the firm to learn about Contour’s unique approach in building a strong company foundation at the seed stage. This is a rare opportunity to join the leading seed stage firm focused on the NYC ecosystem as the 4th member of the team. This partner track role carries significant responsibility and there is unlimited opportunity to help grow the firm.
Principal Role
We are hiring a Principal to work closely with the three Partners at Contour, where you will have the opportunity to learn about all aspects of Contour’s unique approach to investing in seed stage companies while being mentored by the Partners.
The Principal role is a multi-faceted partner track role that requires well-developed product, financial, strategic, and interpersonal skills. Strong communication, analytical and company building skills are critical, including the ability to network and build strong relationships.
The Principal will be deeply engaged with the portfolio companies, where we typically have a Board seat. We are company builders by nature and therefore the Principal will be immersed with the management teams of the portfolio companies across all areas of their business including product, go to market, hiring, pricing/business model, financings, runway maximization, customer prospecting, etc.
Qualities we are looking for include:
- Understanding of technology, business models and emerging trends to help uncover critical issues for consideration pre and post investment
- Ability to earn the trust of our founders and management teams and diligently work through challenges and opportunities alongside them
- Incredibly strong work ethic, level of confidence, relentless hunger and high integrity
- Humility – nothing is beneath you in terms of work that needs to get done. The founders at Contour do everything and we have never had administrative assistants
- Passion for seed stage investing and the dedication and desire to make this your career path
- Extremely detail oriented with the ability to use these details to inform your critical thinking at a strategic level
- Intellectually curious – always looking to learn and incorporate as many new data points as possible to help make the right decisions and provide value added guidance
- Level of maturity, instinct and intuition that is well beyond your years
- Strong entrepreneurial spirit and passion for the company building process from the earliest stages
- Highly analytical
- Empathetic
- Proactive self-starter with high energy
Key responsibilities include:
- Source opportunities and be able to work with the very best entrepreneurs
- Evaluate management teams, investment decks, financial projections, technology roadmaps, competitive landscapes, market size, etc.
- Conduct due diligence on potential investments, including market research on emerging industry trends to validate opportunities and evaluate the competitive landscape and market size
- Articulate deeply informed opinions on potential investments and isolate the key issues/risks
- Help to put in place and build the right business and operational foundation alongside the management team
- Work with the Partners on portfolio management, fund operations, and administration
- Help and support the New York City technology ecosystem
- Represent Contour at conferences, meetups, industry events, etc.
- Work closely with other industry professionals and firms and establish deep relationships within the startup and tech ecosystem
Key experience includes:
- Operating experience at the seed/startup stages of technology companies. Additional experience as a seed investor, in addition to operating experience, a plus
- Experience and interest in Enterprise Software, vertical B2B SaaS and/or Fintech sectors
- Strong professional network
- Founded an organization or an initiative from scratch at any time in your life – company, non-profit, small business in high school/college, website, other organization, etc.
- Strong operational and financial acumen and at least 5+ years of work experience
- MBA a plus
- Product management experience a plus
- Strong desire to be based in New York City
About Contour Venture Partners
Contour invests in pre-seed and seed stage companies that provide innovative software solutions into the enterprise SaaS, vertical B2B SaaS, financial services and digital health sectors, with a focus on New York City. Contour partners with passionate entrepreneurs and management teams to build great businesses that seek to ultimately transform their industries. We take great pride in the strong bonds we form with management teams, as this is a crucial ingredient to achieving long term milestones while also making the process engaging and enjoyable. We recognize it is the details and pursuit of flawless execution combined with the right long-term vision that enables a company to be great. We have the experience, intuition, judgment and industry expertise to ensure that the foundation is in place for management to build a great business with a sustainable competitive advantage.
