Freestyle Capital

Freestyle Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. General Partners Dave Samuel and Jenny Lefcourt are both entrepreneurs who entered venture capital after founding multiple companies. The firm was founded in 2009 and typically invests in 10-12 companies per year with an average investment between $1.5 million to $3 million. Previous investments include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.

History
Freestyle was founded in 2009 by Dave Samuel and Josh Felser. Prior to Freestyle, Felser and Samuel founded two companies: Spinner, which they sold to AOL in 1999 for $320 million, and Grouper (later renamed Crackle), which they sold to Sony Corp. in 2006 for $65 million.

In 2011, Freestyle announced a formal fund of $27 million. Freestyle raised its second fund of $40 million in 2013 and their third fund of $60 million in 2015.

Jenny Lefcourt joined Freestyle toward the end of Fund II and became an equal partner at the close of Fund III. Notable investments from the first three funds include Intercom, Patreon, Narvar, Digit, Wag, Betterup, Airtable and Snapdocs.

In 2017, Freestyle raised $90 million for its fourth fund.

According to the firm’s website, Josh Felser stepped down as full-time general partner in the summer of 2020 to focus his efforts on companies that foster a more resilient planet.

In March 2022, Freestyle closed its sixth fund at $130 million, making it the firm’s largest fund to date. The fund was raised in a month from existing investors.

Partners
Dave Samuel earned his bachelor degree from MIT. In 1996, Samuel founded and was the CEO of Spinner, one of the first online radio services, which was acquired by AOL for $320 million in 1999. In 2004, he co-founded Crackle, one of the first internet video services, which was acquired by Sony Pictures Entertainment for $65 million in 2006. In addition to his work at Freestyle, Samuel is the founder and chairman of tech toilet seat company Brondell Inc.

Jenny Lefcourt earned her B.S. in economics from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 1998 she left Stanford to found WeddingChannel.com, which was acquired by The Knot, and Bella Pictures, which was acquired by CPI Corp (now defunct). In 2014, Lefcourt joined Freestyle and was promoted to general partner in 2015. She is also a founding member and board member of All Raise, and an angel investor in Discord, Minted and Main Street Hub. Lefcourt was named to the Forbes “Midas Brink List” in 2021 and the "Midas Seed List" in 2022, as well as Barron’s “100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance" for 2022.

Notable Investments
As of March 2022, about 29% of current fund companies have a woman founder or co-founder. • about.me – personal web hosting service, acquired by AOL in 2010.

• Airtable – spreadsheet-database collaboration service.

• Alphadraft – daily fantasy sports provider, acquired by FanDuel in 2015.

• Autodesk – architecture, engineering and entertainment software developer.

• backtype – SaaS social media analytics service, acquired by Twitter in 2011.

• BetterUp – mobile-based leadership platform.

• Buildingconnected - construction bid-management platform, acquired in 2018 by Autodesk.

• Clypd – video ad-targeting service, acquired by AT&T’s Xandr in 2019.

• Digit – personal finance software, acquired in 2021 by consumer lender Opportun.

• Daily - provider of API for easy video integration.

• Ease – human resources and benefits administration software.

• Embark Veterinary – dog genetics company.

• Fi - smart dog collar company.

• figure eight – data annotation company, acquired by Appen in 2019 for $300 million.

• Goinstant – co-browsing software, sold to Salesforce.com in 2012 for $70 million.

• Impermium – cybersecurity provider, acquired in 2019 by Google.

• indextank – real-time-hosted search, acquired in 2011 by LinkedIn.

• Intercom – business messaging software for sales, marketing and support.

• Joyride – podcast player, acquired by Google.

• Launchkit – toolkit for mobile app development, acquired in 2016 by Google.

• leo – messaging app, acquired in 2015 by Lyft.

• Narvar – post-purchase software for order tracking, messaging and returns.

• Opsmatic – DevOps monitoring tool, acquired in 2015 by New Relic.

• Patreon – membership platform for creators to run a subscription service.

• payable – payment platform, acquired in 2107 by Stripe.

• Rangeme – platform for consumer packaged goods, acquired in 2017 by Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM).

• Snapdocs – digital loan closing platform.

• Snappytv – video clip platform, acquired in 2014 by Twitter.

• Superside (formerly Konsus) - outsourced design platform.

• Tenor (formerly riffsy) – GIF keyboard and search engine, acquired in 2018 by Google.

• Thatch – travel creator business tools provider.

• Typekit – cloud-based font site, acquired in 2011 by Adobe

• Well – communication platform for patients and healthcare organizations