David Teten

Venture Partner

2025 - Current

Orange Collective exclusively invests in AI companies from Y Combinator. We have over 150 Y Combinator alumni as active LPs. They invest in the fund, evaluate each Y Combinator batch, perform due diligence, and help us gain access to hard-to-access opportunities. We also have 75+ non-Y Combinator accredited investors in the fund that want to be closer to Y Combinator. Our team has founded 5 companies which participated in 5 graduating Y Combinator batches spanning from 2009 to 2017. Our team has also collectively angel invested in 200+ Y Combinator companies, including unicorn outcomes like Ironclad, Vanta, Replit, Moonvalley, and Snapdocs. Following our first close, we’ve invested in 4 of the top companies from the recent Y Combinator batch, including companies that have since shown viral growth like Browser-Use and Mastra.ai. Our strategy is to get into the top companies extremely early, when prices are lower. Following our investments, our four portfolio companies raised $34M more in Tier 1 capital at an average 1.5x higher valuation cap. Most investors couldn’t even get allocations.

Founder and Managing Partner

2019

Versatile VC backs early-stage "investment tech" fintech companies which help investors generate alpha and win. For example, we’re investors in alternative data, investment research, administrative tools, alternatives marketplaces, and marketing tech to help gather assets. Our typical check size is $200,000 to $1,000,000. We built and manage: FoundersNextMove.com: a community for tech founders who have exited, and AltsTech.com: a community for family offices, private equity funds, lenders, and VCs using technology and analytics to generate alpha in the private markets. Among the investment tech companies I've invested in: Xperiti - A modern expert network, leveraging AI and ML for greater efficiency (acquired by Ipsos) Addepar - Make smarter investment decisions and drive greater outcomes for the portfolios in your car Asaak - Asset-financing and mobile financial services in emerging markets ClarityMoney - AI-powered platform to manage consumer spending; generates rich behavioral data (acquired by Goldman Sachs Marcus) Earnest Analytics - Earnest Analytics helps companies and investors understand the world through data Drop Technologies - Cardify.ai from Drop unlocks the what and the why behind consumer spending Indiegogo - Platform to launch & fund innovative products Republic - Access vetted investments in startups, real estate, video games Stratifi - Client-profiling tools to make measuring risk simple Wonder - The future of knowledge delivery: on-demand research from analysts (Includes investments while a Partner at prior VC funds)

Venture Partner (formerly Partner)

2023

Coolwater Capital invests into emerging fund managers as a limited partner, into general partnerships, and into fund management companies. We run an accelerator for emerging fund managers (mostly VCs) and have graduated >290 funds which have collectively raised >$3b. Our GPs collectively have backed >8,000 companies. - Originate, diligence, invest in, and advise emerging VC funds. - Developed standard “constitution”, deal structure, GP entity, and management company legal docs. - Recruited faculty and sponsors for accelerator. - Build out resources to support managers. - Source direct investment opportunities, including co-invests with top VCs. - Institutionalize firm processes. Upgrade internal analytics processes, tech stack, and data. - Raise capital. - Strategy. Competitive analysis and benchmarking.

Venture Partner

2019 - 2021

Managing Partner

2017 - 2019

HOF Capital is a technology-focused venture capital firm that helps ambitious founders build massive, enduring businesses. Backed by over 70 influential families and organizations across 37 countries, HOF supports entrepreneurs by providing them with long-term-focused capital from idea to IPO, and helping them structure transformational partnerships with enterprises in its LP network. HOF has offices in New York, San Francisco, and London, with venture partners located globally. HOF today manages over $1.5b in assets. I joined shortly after HOF launched as the first outside Partner. INVESTING: Within our portfolio, I particularly worked as part of the team with our fintech companies: Asaak, Terraform Labs, Spherical Defense, Stratifi, Arcus, Flutterwave, and Drop Technologies (also a ff Venture Capital company). PORTFOLIO ACCELERATION I lead portfolio acceleration. In 2018, I personally made over 70 introductions between our portfolio executives and top VCs, financial institutions, and enterprises. I also advised CEOs on fundraising, management, and other issues. TECHNOLOGY I worked with our team to drive technology adoption at HOF, including implementing our CRM, management systems, and cap table management system.

Partner

2011 - 2017

ffVC's Founder recruited me to join him as the second Partner at ffVC in 2011. At the time, we had only our CFO and an Associate in the firm. I was a full-time Partner until March 2017, then a Venture Partner through March 2018. During my tenure, we grew ffVC to >$150m in AUM and >25 employees. ff Rose Innovate NY (2013) is the best performing fund in the country for its vintage (Preqin). ffVC invested in 84 companies across US, Canada, Israel, and UK. INVESTING: - Served on boards of Ionic (sold to Twilio), Authorea (sold to Wiley), Earnest Analytics (Observer), Signup.com, and Whisk (sold to Deem). - Originated investment in Ionic Security and served as first board member outside of Atlanta. Ionic has since raised >$162m from Amazon, GV, Icon Ventures, Jafco Ventures, JP Morgan Chase, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital, TechOperators, and others, then exited to Twilio. PORTFOLIO ACCELERATION: - Initiated and lead growth acceleration platform: strategy consulting, preferred service providers recommendations, engineering support, PR/communications guidance, recruiting, mentor network, etc. Worked with almost all portfolio companies as advisor/resource/coach/mentor. - Reorganized, restructured & recruited new CEO for Clearpath Immigration (sold to L1BRE). FUNDRAISING: - Lead fundraising process for fund III, which included LPs such as Innovate NY (New York State) and Goldman Sachs. Part of team which made ffVC the first VC in the US to raise a fund via general solicitation (fund III). TECHNOLOGY: - Work with our engineering team to refine our internal, custom-made platform for tracking future and current investments and all associated data (spun off as Totemvc.com).

Founder and Board Member

2010 - 2017

- Recruited >130 angels as early members. Today, we are the largest angel group on the East Coast; our >350 members have invested $15m into >100 companies. We are the largest member of the global HBS Alumni Angels Association, with >1,000 members who have invested $70m into >300 companies. - Launched Fast Track program, which helps institutional VCs identify value-added coinvestors. - Co-founded Venture Capital Access Program, helping women and diverse entrepreneurs to raise capital from our group, partnered with National Association of Investment Companies. Organized joint pitch nights with the HBS/Harvard alumni associations for women, African-American, Latino, Arab, and LBGT communities. I served as Chairman until June 2014, then moved to Chairman Emeritus through Spring 2017.

Co-founder and CEO

2010 - 2011

Data mining and research analytics company, focused on helping institutional investors to identify proprietary investments in illiquid assets, using web-scraping and other non-traditional sources. - Advised funds such as Birch Hill Equity Partners, LLR Partners, and Duane Street Capital. - Lead author, first-ever study on private equity and venture capital funds' best practices in sourcing private company investments. Published in Journal of Private Equity, Harvard Business Review, and Institutional Investor. This is the 2nd all-time most read study published in the Journal of Private Equity.

Acting CEO

2009 - 2010

Web-based platform for planning complex events.

Managing Director

2007 - 2008

Evalueserve is an offshore research and analytics firm which has grown from 0 to >2,500 employees since 2000. Over 1,100 clients, including 6 of the 10 largest investment banks and 10 of top 15 strategy consulting firms. - Co-run Circle of Experts subsidiary, which I founded and sold to Evalueserve in February 2007. - Lead Circle of Experts sales across >65 salespeople firmwide. Developed and taught sales training unit. Ranked #1 in company in referring leads to colleagues: >400 leads. - Launched and sold service to help private equity firms build close, proprietary networks of senior executives to serve as board representatives and interim executives. - Lead technology function: relaunched website, extranets, intranet, and blog. - Won "2008 Top Pick for Asia/Emerging Market Expert Network" from Integrity Research, one year after merger.

Co-founder and CEO

2003 - 2007

Research firm providing hedge funds, private equity funds, venture capitalists, investment banks, and law firms with investment research leveraging a network of frontline industry experts. Led negotiation to sell to Evalueserve. - Lead salesperson. Personally signed some of the top 10 investment banks, top 10 hedge funds, and top 20 private equity funds. - Designed proprietary speed-recruiting process to recruit experts for clients typically in 1-3 days. - Developed, taught proprietary elicitation training: how to motivate sources to share information with investors. Based on tools used by intelligence officers, psychiatrists, and journalists.