Adam Besvinick
Managing Partner at Looking Glass Capital
Adam Besvinick
Managing Partner at Looking Glass Capital
New York City Metropolitan Area
Overview
Work Experience
Founder and Managing Partner
2020 - Current
Looking Glass Capital is a "first yes" pre-seed investor seeking to invest in and support mission-driven founders during the earliest days of company building. We make high conviction investments most often as a lead, co-lead, or anchor in non-consensus opportunities. We are most inspired by entrepreneurs solving today's biggest challenges across the themes of health, climate, and empowerment (education; tools and platforms for SMBs; and products that enable access, identity, or self-expression). Fund I investments include: Hone, Zolt (fka Framework), Plot (fka Unicycle), [untitled], Basil Systems, Carbon Collective, EnMass Energy, Daily Blends, Therify, Polimorphic, EarlyDay (acquired by Wonderschool), Sylvan Health, WattCarbon, Impilo Health, Frame, Innerwell, Captain Experiences, Millie, Verity, PairUp, OceanSync, Genemod, Kinspire, and CuraFi Fund II investments include: Humans Anonymous, Rhizome, Eli, North, Primary Health, and ThreeV (plus seven more unannounced investments)
Looking Glass invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups solving the biggest challenges in health, human capital, and the environment.
Angel Investor
2019 - 2019
Invested in the pre-seed / seed round of five companies: Seasons, Oasis, Therefore, Invisible Universe, and Primer
Venture Investor
2017 - 2019
Invested in Series A (and later) startups, including NomNom (Series A lead; acquired by Mars), Plant Prefab (Series A lead), Inkbox (Series A investor; acquired by BIC), and Carrot Health (Series B investor)
Anchorage Capital Group is a specialised private equity firm that focuses on operational turnarounds and special situations investments.
Principal
2014 - 2017
Responsible for sourcing and leading Deep Fork's investments in BigID, Transfix.io, One Concern, Ease.com (acquired by Employee Navigator), Winnie, StatMuse, Rebel (acquired by Salesforce), Bowery.io, Chalk, Educents, VSporto, Enhatch, Vive, and Datmo (acquired by One Concern) Worked closely with founders and their teams on business development, product, hiring, and planning for subsequent fund raises, doing whatever it took to help companies get to the next level
Deep Fork Capital (DFC) is a $30mm seed-focused venture capital fund with presences in San Francisco and New York.
Co-lead
2013 - 2014
Co-led By/Association, an angel investor group that functioned like an "offline AngelList syndicate" Sourced and diligenced opportunities to share with By/Association members; did my best to do the job of a VC before I actually was one By/Association's investments include: Experiment.com, Javelin.com, and Transfix.io
Partnerships + Business Development Lead
2013 - 2014
First business hire overseeing relationships with brands and retailers and monetization Sourced, developed, and managed new relationships with key brands (e.g. Nike and Lululemon), retailers (e.g. Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom), and media companies (e.g. Hearst and Conde Nast), including in-store integrations with all Nordstrom locations and influencer campaigns Restructured, implemented, and managed Wanelo's affiliate partnerships with hundreds of retailers, negotiating favorable commission rates for driving sales Helped affect retailer-oriented product changes and features, including merging store and brands' user profile pages and native transactions within Wanelo's mobile apps
Associate (Intern)
2011 - 2013
Cold-emailed my way into getting to learn the business of seed investing from Chris Sacca while attending business school Worked on projects with portfolio companies, including Twitter (acquisition), Uber (launching a new city), Styleseat (biz dev deal), and PICT (biz dev partnerships and sales) Did research and analysis on various sectors in advance of Lowercase raising two funds
Growth + Business Development (Intern)
2012 - 2012
Identified and partnered with strategic media properties, content platforms, and individuals in order to increase Gumroad's adoption and user base within target markets On-boarded content creators and their digital teams, including Wiz Khalifa and Ellie Goulding, as well as companies such as Onepager and The Monday Life Worked with Facebook and Twitter to develop a relationship with Gumroad Worked full-time in SF during the summer and part-time during the spring and fall
Gumroad owns and operates an online service through which users can buy and sell digital goods such as design templates and source codes.
Raised $16,100,000.00 from Apoorv Tyagi, Zeno Rocha, Phil Quist, George Burke, Joshua Fidrmuc, Founders Committee Ventures, Bay Wharf Capital, Grant Belgard and Ahmad Awais.
Analyst
2010 - 2011
Lived in a cubicle and in Excel within the telecom investment banking group, primarily working on debt and sell-side M&A transactions that never closed Learned how to work both hard and smart, while getting more responsibility than the average 23-year-old should have
Summer Analyst
2009 - 2009
Developed a "love" for investment banking in the tech, media, and telecom group, ultimately leading me to the telecom group at Jefferies
The Rand Group is a San Francisco-based wealth management team led by Managing Director Daniella Rand.
Education
Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.)
2011 - 2013
Bachelor’s Degree
2005 - 2009
High School
1996 - 2005