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William Crowder

Managing Partner at Aperture Investor

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Overview 

William Crowder is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Aperture VC in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With a background in strategy development and venture capital, he has successfully invested in companies like Pryon (Series B) and has held key roles at prominent firms like Comcast Ventures and Morgan Stanley. Crowder's career highlights include founding Aperture VC and leading investments in innovative startups, showcasing his expertise in strategic partnerships and sales force effectiveness. His role as Co-Founder & Managing Partner demonstrates his leadership in the venture capital space and his ability to drive successful investments in early-stage companies.

Work Experience 

  • Co-Founder & Managing Partner

    2021 - Current

    Investing in the evolution of financial services. Supporting founders at the early stage of their journey to build category-defining companies. Current investments include: Anonybit, Azimuth, Freeing Returns, Goodfynd, and GreenLyne. Learn more at www.aperturevc.com and find us on X via @aperturevc

Aperture Venture Capital backs diverse founders leveraging financial innovation to help individual & businesses thrive.

  • Adjunct Professor

    2024

    Teach a second-year course for MBA students interested in the venture capital profession. "Special Topics in Finance: VC Lab" is an experiential deep dive into the world of venture capital as a practitioner. Students learn to embracing risk in times of great uncertainty through a hands-on opportunity to evaluate and assess opportunities to invest in early stage companies currently raising capital.

  • VC In Residence

    2017 - 2021

    First VC in Residence for Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, an accelerator program designed for seed stage companies with multicultural founders including women and people of color.

Morgan Stanley Venture Partners is a private equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in the technology and healthcare industries.

  • Lead Investor, Catalyst Fund

    2012 - 2017

    Built the Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, a $20M venture capital fund focused on investing in early stage tech companies led by diverse entrepreneurs. Invested in 50+ startups with aggregate enterprise value exceeding $5 billion including Squire, Flutterwave, EightSleep, and PartPic (acquired by Amazon).

Comcast Ventures partners with extraordinary entrepreneurs building transformative consumer and enterprise companies.

  • Managing Director

    2011 - 2016

    Sourced and advised pre-seed founders building the next wave of game-changing companies. Dreamit-backed companies include SeatGeek, Octane Lending, and LevelUp (acquired by Grubub).

Venture fund focused on real estate tech, proptech & construction tech startups.

  • Founder and Managing Director

    2008 - 2011

    Strategic advisory and consulting firm serving the strategic and operational needs of growth-oriented companies. Client engagements included: Managing the planning, development, and launch of an online venture for a $350MM media company with radio, TV, and print holdings. Leading the post-merger integration of multiple media properties (3 companies, 150+ employees) with a publicly traded traditional media company (1,000+ employees).

  • Director Strategy Business Development

    2007 - 2009

    Transformed the post-merger operations of 4 online advertising businesses into a fully integrated digital $2B advertising entity. Served as chief of staff to and managed business unit performance and led strategic initiatives to achieve growth objectives.

  • Senior Manager, Operational Effectiveness Program

    2004 - 2007

    - Strategically wound down operations of AOL's worldwide customer support and call center operations. - Led cost reduction initiatives to offset subscriber revenue decline

AOL Lifestream is a web-based application that enables users to keep track of all their comments on social networking sites.

Raised $1,000,000,000.00 from Comcast Ventures and Google.

  • Manager, Global Strategy

    2001 - 2002

    More strategy and M&A consulting. This time in the legal and regulatory space.

  • Associate

    1999 - 2001

    Strategy and M&A consulting. Advised on a wide range of financial services cases including the management buyout of a payments processor, pre-IPO preparation of a life insurance provider, and the creation of a venture-backed eCommerce roll-up.

CAVOK is a technical consulting firm that supports the development of manual systems and processes.

  • Summer Associate

    1998 - 1998

    My introduction to the world of management consulting between Y1 and Y2 of business school.

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