The Family, Business Strategy, and Private Equity Firms

European Straits #54

Dear all,

My firm The Family has always invested in working relationships with traditional corporations. We see it as a way to make the startup ecosystem healthier: those corporations are indispensable allies since they can invest in startups, acquire them, or partner with them. This is all the truer in Europe, where entrepreneurs don’t have the luxury of raising enough capital to buy complete freedom from established players in legacy industries.

In time, our work with corporations has shifted from simply speaking in front of their executives to working with them in an advisory capacity. By advising corporate clients, we would educate them on the startup world and learn from them to better understand technology-related challenges. It also revealed a way of generating revenue to finance our growth as an investment firm.

There are some famous precedents for combining advisory activities with developing an investment portfolio. One is Blackstone, in which advisory has long been part of the…