Drive Capital, a multi-strategy venture firm investing in market-defining startups located in the “Driveway”, the underinvested region in North America between the Hudson River and the Rocky Mountains, today announced two new funds totalling $1 billion. With the new funds, Drive has $2.2 billion in assets under management to support founders from pre-seed to IPO.
The additional $1 billion further supports the “Driveway” thesis of democratizing access to venture capital. Technology used to be its own industry based in Silicon Valley but now, technology cuts horizontally through every business and industry. There are more billion-dollar opportunities east of the Rockies and west of the Hudson River than everywhere else in North America combined.
Drive was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 2013 with the simple yet radical idea: Founders should build where they’re strongest. That is, they should be near their customers and where the pool of engineering and industry talent is deep and experienced.
“Even before COVID-19, the venture industry was coming around to the fact that not all great startup ideas were in Silicon Valley,” said Chris Olsen, Co-Founder and Partner at Drive Capital. “But too often that meant firms would pursue opportunities in emerging markets in China, India, or elsewhere.”
“But America itself is a great emerging market, and we believe that our capital, expertise, and relentless work ethic can untap billions of dollars of value. We are proving our ‘Driveway’ thesis out, and our two new funds position us to take founders even farther over the next ten years.”
Unique for a non-coastal VC, Drive invests at all stages, from idea through IPO. Of note, Drive first invested in Olive (AI for healthcare), Beam Benefits (employee benefits), and Path Robotics when they were pre-product, and continued to invest in each of them through multiple rounds.
“It is critical that venture firms have the resources to follow their convictions and readily provide their portfolio companies with more capital when they need it the most,” said Molly Bonakdarpour, a Drive Capital Partner. “These new funds strengthen Drive’s role as a long-term partner for the region’s top startups, and differentiates us among an increasingly crowded venture market.”
