STEP-BY-STEP GUIDANCE FOR AMBITIOUS founders

The Head Start

The Head Start

The Head Start

You’ve got a lot of hats. 
Here’s how to wear them well.

As an early-stage founder, you’re doing it all. Recruiting a team, raising money, managing product, establishing a brand and culture, and telling the world why it should pay attention. Thankfully, our Investor and Platform team leaders have lived through it on both the startup and VC sides, and they’re here to share what they’ve learned. Welcome to The Head Start.
Rigorous, curious, committed

Connect With Us

We’re a passionate bunch of business builders and hat jugglers who invest in early-stage startups and growth-stage founders with world-shifting potential.

Ajay Agarwal builds and invests in early-stage application software companies. Within apps, Ajay has spent time in the modern sales and marketing stack; vertical SAAS with embedded fintech; supply chain and logistics; and product-led growth.

Ajay Agarwal

Allison Braley leads BCV’s marketing team, which supports BCV and its portfolio companies through communications, brand strategy and events. Allison brings experience in VC marketing, high-growth startups and communications to help BCV and its portfolio companies become known and understood.

Allison Braley

Leslie Crowe is an expert in building talent and culture at companies during periods of growth. Leslie collaborates with portfolio company founders and leaders, providing strategic counsel to successfully scale their organizations and capitalize on BCV’s extensive talent network.

Leslie Crowe

Scott invests in application software companies, leveraging a career working in the commerce and marketing ecosystems. A former seed-to-exit founder of a successful Bain Capital backed commerce-tech analytics business, Scott is a trusted operational partner and advisor to founders at all stages.

Scott Friend

For 30 years, Matt Harris has been investing in the visionary fintech founders creating seismic changes in payments, lending, capital markets, insurance and real estate. He is particularly interested in backing companies building next-generation embedded fintech tools that will upend traditional banking, lending and B2B payments through increased transparency and security.

Matt Harris

Saanya Ojha partners with growth-stage founders building the next generation of software products across infrastructure, apps and fintech. 

Saanya Ojha

Enrique Salem invests in early-stage infrastructure software companies, with a specialization in cybersecurity. Enrique is a global leader in security, backup and availability solutions.

Enrique Salem

Slater partners with early-stage founders in infrastructure, with a focus on tools for data teams. He’s interested in practical products that make life better for the working software engineer, data scientist or other technical IC.

Slater Stich

Jeff Williams joined BCV in 2016 as an operating partner in the Bay Area, where he focuses on infrastructure software and security. He has more than 25 years of operating experience helping early-stage enterprise software companies to scale and grow into market leaders.

Jeffrey Williams

Kevin Zhang partners from inception with founders building for the real world. Prior to BCV, Kevin led product as the first business hire at Fundera, a financial services marketplace.

Kevin Zhang

“The relationships forged with that early team are lasting to this day. There is no replacement for it.”