Managed by an all UNC-Chapel Hill alumni team, Raleigh-based Hyperspace Ventures is working to help startups build “world-class digital products, from idea to acquisition and beyond.” And now they’re extending their product line and company support with the creation of a new special purpose vehicle (SPV) program, designed to help new and existing companies by injecting capital.
As Managing Partner Peter Fox describes it, Hyperspace was founded in 2018 with a mission “to make a dent in the universe” by helping entrepreneurs get their products to market faster by providing design and development help.
For the past six years with a team of roughly 50 people ranging from full stack engineers to product managers, they’ve already worked with more than 150 clients, helping to raise over $150 million dollars and provide 100-million-plus lines of code. Some of their current portfolio clients include California-based Learn To Win, Durham-based Rownd and Raleigh-based Social Cascade (which is also a part of GrepBeat sister investment firm Primordial Ventures’ portfolio).
Now with this newly created SPV program, Hyperspace is enabling itself to invest in companies early on and provide an even greater form of support.
“If we see something great or we love the founder, [this program] allows people to come in and invest without having to have a technical perspective because we’ll already provide it,” Fox said. “It kind of opens the top of the funnel a bit more to help continue service companies we’ve worked with in the past and help bring in more eyes on newer companies.”
According to Jordan McAlister, Head of Investment and Innovation Strategy at Hyperspace, the company provides an especially unique perspective on deals through this program, particularly for their existing portfolio.
“[Hyperspace has] seen the founder execute, they know how they feel about the product, they’ve watched them grow over time, and I think from that perspective, [they] have that insider view that you wouldn’t normally have as either a VC or angel investor,” McAlister said.
She went on to point out that another unique point about the program is that it creates more opportunities to pull more investors into syndicate deals. The connection with Hyperspace’s SPV program allows them to do diligence on all sides of a deal, and with a strong team either already involved in the companies or qualified to review the deals, it becomes easier for outside investors to jump in.
Investor & Founder Perspectives
For investors interested in learning more about Hyperspace’s investment opportunities, Fox emphasized that—especially with companies they’ve worked with—they know the products inside and out, they know target markets and they have a strong team of seasoned founders (with successful exits) to evaluate these companies. This early, newest SPV program will broadly target Series A and later growth tech companies either already in their portfolio or that they see good investment opportunity in.
They ask that any interested investors to check out their investor survey here and learn more about the different opportunities.
For founders, McAlister said to think of Hyperspace as the early technical or product co-founder that can help “beat that chicken or egg problem of, ‘I need funding to get my product in market but I need the product to get funding.’”
Fox expanded on that point by noting that Hyperspace has a full stack of resources to build out mobile products and flexibility around investing in your company to help reduce the amount needed to raise to put toward product development.
Going forward, Fox said on top of their continuous support for their current and past portfolio entrepreneurs, Hyperspace will continue to be involved in and sponsor NC universities and NC-based accelerators to help connect NC-based investors to founders looking to raise.
Fox mentioned that since one of their founding partners, Taylor Meyer, co-founded his (now acquired) company under 1789 Venture Lab and then Launch Chapel Hill, Hyperspace is committed to continuing to support the work these and similar organizations do for emerging companies.
“There’s a lot of ties to the startup accelerated community within the area and we look forward to continuing to support founders from around there,” Fox said. “There’s so many good companies coming out of the Triangle, and with these additional opportunities on our end to invest and/or build out their product, we hope to create a full circle of support for these entrepreneurs.”
