Founder Collective, the seed stage investment fund led by founders such as David Frankel, Chris Dixon, Caterina Fake and Eric Paley, has raised a total of $ 70 million for its second fund. The fund, which also includes partners Zach Klein, Bill Trenchard and Micah Rosenbloo, has invested in a slew of companies including Buzzfeed, Uber, StackExchange, HotelTonight, Chartbeat and others. Founder Collective previously raised $ 50 million for its first fund in 2008.
Paley wrote in a blog post that the fund will continue to focus on seed stage investments and supporting founders, and that it will still be managed by Paley and Frankel. The fund, which has been based in New York and Cambridge, Mass. and originally focused more on East Coast startups, will consider more investment possibilities around the world, including the Bay Area, where three of the partners now live.
Founder Collective was born out of the vision of creating a “peer-to-peer” investing model in which founders turn to other founders for funding. The goal was to give entrepreneurs a fund that can provide support from people who have run companies themselves.
Founder Collective has backed a number of startups including GroupMe, Hunch, Hot Potato, Milo, Posterous, About.me and others that have been acquired by big names such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype, AOL, eBay.
