The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm with $7 billion in assets under management and an international portfolio of more than 80 portfolio companies. Riverside started as a one-person operation in 1988, and has grown to include offices in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region staffed with more than 200 locally based team members. Riverside has a fast-paced environment, a culture of openness and a long track record of global success.
RIVERSIDE ACCELERATION CAPITAL (RAC)
Riverside Acceleration Capital (RAC) is a Riverside fund that provides flexible growth capital to expansion-stage B2B software and technology companies, though an investment structure that maximizes alignment while minimizing dilution. For more information, visit http://www.riverside.ac
THE POSITION
RAC is still a relatively new fund, with a unique strategy. This is a new position that is very strategic for RAC, and it has the potential to evolve over time. The primary objective of this role is to broaden RAC’s reach, and to create a more stable “engine” of new investment opportunities for RAC.
- Building this ‘engine’ will involve establishing and maintaining relationships with venture funds, service providers, entrepreneurs, individual companies, investment bankers, angel groups, and other ‘channels’ that will help us connect with B2B software companies. It will also involve refining our marketing message and positioning.
- Often, these relationships will likely need to be nurtured over a period of a year or more before they yield a concrete investment opportunity. Therefore, being a proactive ‘nurturer’ will be essential to success. It will take an extremely high level of organization, planning, and energy to do this effectively.
- We suspect that it will be important to have a ‘regional’ strategy–which would involve planning trips to key cities like Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Austin, DC, and San Francisco on a regular cadence (1-2x per year each). In the interim, it will be important to keep in regular contact with partners and prospects by phone and email (again, requiring an extremely high level of organization and energy). The candidate will have the ability to shape the strategy over time.
- The candidate will also be the public face of RAC, by attending conferences, speaking on panels, attending events, and the like.
- In addition, the candidate will take over the nurturing of certain companies and relationships that RAC has built up to this point, and will help evaluate/qualify certain opportunities that come in through referrals or other inbound sources.
- Finally, the candidate will help to facilitate connections and otherwise look for ways to be of assistance to companies in the portfolio (leveraging both Riverside resources and external resources), and generally help RAC leverage its reach and resources. We suspect there is a lot of potential value that we are not realizing today.
- The candidate needs to be comfortable operating independently, as they will be the only team member exclusively focused on business development. With success, there is the potential to increase the size of the team as the fund continues to grow.
- Culturally, we approach everything we do with a spirit of fun, learning, and introspection. We are passionate about what we’re doing with RAC, and we’re building it to be around for a very long time.
We absolutely work with 100% integrity, 100% of the time. We expect the same from the companies in which we invest and the people with whom we work. That integrity is more important to us than our returns.
REQUIREMENTS
- It will be vital that the candidate establish an organized and thoughtful process, and also that the candidate be militant about using our CRM system and other databases. The candidate should also help us continue to develop new tools for our process. Without data, we can’t stay organized, and we can’t improve.
- As long as the candidate is passionate about what we’re doing, and about entrepreneurship generally, then creating and maintaining these types of relationships and working with these companies will be a lot of fun, and incredibly rewarding (speaking for ourselves, finding and keeping up with companies is
our favorite part of the job!) On the other hand, if the candidate doesn’t love hearing about new software companies or doesn’t believe that RAC’s mission is unique and important, then this position will simply not be a good fit. We are (and will always be) a small team, and all of us truly love what we do here. - RAC is young and is developing quickly. It is an energizing and fun environment, but it is everchanging, is unstructured, and it can be stressful. We’ve enjoyed this dynamism, and hope that our growth and development continues for many years to come. Any candidate considering joining the team should be excited by, and should feel it possible to thrive in, such an environment.
- The candidate should be comfortable with frequent travel
- Candidate should have strong prior knowledge of B2B software, and have previous experience in a business development-type role
- The team is based in New York, though there is some flexibility on the candidate’s location. If the candidate is not based in New York, they need to be comfortable working remotely out of a home office or shared office space; and should expect to spend significant time in New York.
If interested, please contact Jonathan Drillings at drillings+vcc@gmail.com
