Paul Singh, who quit 500 Startups early this year to launch a new venture capital firm Disruption Corp, is looking to back firms with post-seed stage investments of up to $250,000.
The firm is raising $50 million through its first fund Crystal Tech Fund, which already has a $10 million commitment from realty-focused investment firm Vornado. Disruption Corp has also leased a property from Vornado to provide a flexible office space to its portfolio firms like an incubator.
“The world doesn’t need more startups,” Singh said in a blog post on Thursday. “What the world needs is more businesses,” he added.
Already the VC firm counts close to half a dozen portfolio companies. These include web-based conference call app Speek; real food chef network and meal delivery platform Power Supply; event engagement platform Nvite, whose founder sold his last company to Twitter; SupplyHog, an e-com platform for contractors and Riskpulse, which offers asset maps and risk information to companies whose supply chains and/or logistics are weather-dependent.
Singh expects to invest in coming months in more than a dozen post-seed stage companies, firms whose annual revenues average $1 million.
“As an investor my job is to figure out what the best founders and their teams need to grow their early-stage companies into the big powerhouses of tomorrow. Big returns come from the founders and their teams; my job – via this new fund and our partnership with Vornado – is to give them a curated, aspirational and inspirational environment to help them succeed,” he said.
Disruption Corp doesn't have a specific geographic bent but given that Singh has been actively involved with a few Indian investments of 500 Startups, the firm may back some cross-border tech startups. We have dropped a mail to the firm to find out more and will update as we hear from it.
Singh graduated from Northern Virginia’s George Mason University and moved to California in 2007. He was one of the original partners in 500 Startups in Mountain View, Calif., now one of the prominent investment fund and business accelerator programmes for technology companies.
At 500 Startups, Singh oversaw investments in more than 600 early-stage companies in 35 countries within four years. These include: MakerBot (acquired by Stratasys for $400 million), Wildfire Interactive (acquired by Google for $350 million), Behance (acquired by Adobe for $150 million) and ZenCoder (acquired by BrightCove for $30 million), among others.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
