Soma Capital Overview
Soma Capital is a multi-stage venture capital fund focused on “software automating the world” across any sector or geography, with an emphasis on B2B SaaS, Fintech and some frontier tech. We’ve seeded 17 unicorns since launching 6 years ago, getting recognition and ramping up fast. We’re a lean team in a fast paced environment – think “startup VC” – where you will get deal making experience and work with seed to late stage breakout companies. We have mostly institutional backing (pensions, corporates, sovereigns), and some of our LPs (limited partners) are co-founders of legendary technology companies like Facebook, Tinder, and Datadog, among others. Most of our unicorn founders have become advisors to Soma Cap giving us robust operational experience to help founders, and we have the ability to keep doubling down from seed to late stage. Our ultimate vision is build the #1 seed fund brand in the world, and deploy billions in breakouts along the full path in the next “tech goliaths” of our time that touch a billion people and push humanity forward. We are driven as a team to make the biggest mark possible.
Soma Capital is seeking to hire an Associate to help primarily with early-stage investments. As a part of the role, you will be responsible for end-to-end execution of seed deals + fund operations, working directly with existing portfolio companies to scale their businesses, and networking with other VCs, founders, and LPs in the fund. While the role is seed focused, you’ll have exposure to the entire investment life cycle (seed to pre-IPO) and will have the opportunity to go deep and wide across all sectors in our coverage universe – from frontier tech to fintech (full portfolio can be viewed here). This role will also partly serve as a “Chief of Staff” to Aneel Ranadive, our managing partner.
Role Details
Title: Investment Associate
Location: Flexible between San Francisco, New York, and Miami / Remote OK
Start Date: Fall 2021
What You Will be Doing
- Portfolio Management:
- To support deal sourcing and evaluation, you will communicate directly with entrepreneurs and executives. You will need strong people skills and strong communication skills, and be able to network and build rapport quickly.
- Follow up with existing portfolio companies, learn the ins and outs of the businesses and update all data in Carta for Soma internally.
- Follow up with existing portfolio companies (opportunity to “own” as many as you can), learn the ins and outs of the businesses, and serve as a thought partner and value-additive investor, helping with customer acquisition, talent and fundraising to name a few.
- Meet with management teams and industry experts to help source new ideas
- Diligence:
- You will evaluate investment opportunities, determine key thesis and concerns, leverage your network and firm resources to perform due diligence. To do this successfully, we expect you to be a logical & analytical thinker, a quick learner, and be able to assess key theses and risks to ultimately build conviction and communicate those findings through writing.
- Perform industry / sector and company analysis, and company due diligence
- Build investment cases for specific companies, writing investment memos and presenting opportunities
- Operations:
- Generally, serve as Aneel’s “Chief of Staff” as part of the role
- Maintain fund administration model and financials by owning all portfolio company valuations and markups; additionally, you will help with firm & infrastructure building (CRM, data room, etc.)
- Create quarterly reports for our LPs, updating them on all portfolio company performance, plus any additional learnings or insights and what they should be excited about for the future of the portfolio
- Investor Relations:
- Support with LP communications, including assistance with monthly LP reports and regular meetings updating them on portfolio company performance, plus any additional learnings or insights and what they should be excited about for the future of the portfolio.
- Maintain LP database of our investors and their backgrounds
- Assist with outreach to new and potentially exciting investors / advisors
Minimum Qualifications
- 2-5 years total experience, with 1-2 years in management consulting / investment banking / other finance
- Product / Ops experience at a high-growth technology company preferred
- Technical background (C.S. undergrad and/or developer experience) preferred
- An outstanding record of professional and academic achievement
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills as well as creative problem-solving ability in unstructured environments
- Excellent attention to detail and follow through
- Motivated, hard-working team player, able to work effectively in a small team setting
- Genuine passion for technology and entrepreneurship
- Ability to balance multiple projects and work on tight deadlines
- Superlative attitude and impervious to transparent & constructive feedback
Reach out to aneel@somacap.com if you’re interested!
