We are excited to kick off the search for an Analyst to join our Bay Area investment team, dividing time between our San Francisco and Menlo Park offices. We are looking for exceptional, independent, and thoughtful candidates who can join us and quickly become an integral part of our core investment team. We are looking to add new and diverse perspectives to our existing team.
Do you love hunting for the next compelling product or service in enterprise, consumer, fintech and frontier technology and are looking to get hands-on experience in early stage venture investing? If so, we want to hear from you.
About Us
Canaan is an $800M fund with $5B AUM that invests in visionaries with transformative ideas. For over 30 years, Canaan has partnered with entrepreneurs that have had a fundamental impact on technology and healthcare. Canaan’s early stage investments span a wide range of sectors including financial technology, frontier technology, consumer and enterprise software, as well as biopharma and digital health.
We are a tight-knit and diverse team that’s big on performance but low on ego. We welcome out-of-the-box thinking and spirited debate. It’s our individual backgrounds and interests that inform our collective approach, which spans industries, generations and coasts.
The Role
We are hiring for a tech-obsessed self-starter looking to work alongside our investment professionals as a generalist across Canaan’s core technology investment areas. This is a 2-3 year role in which an analyst at Canaan can expect to:
- Conduct market research to identify emerging trends and potential investments
- Conduct due diligence (e.g. market analysis, competitive mapping, financial modeling, and cap tables analysis)
- Manage our CRM and deal pipeline internally
- Develop relationships with Canaan portfolio companies, founders of future Canaan portfolio companies, service providers and anyone & everyone in technology
- Attend company pitch meetings and conduct due diligence on potential investments
- Attend board meetings and provide ongoing portfolio company support
- Have a strong voice during partnership meetings as we discuss new and existing deals
- Help plan and execute Canaan community events
- Own specific projects that you’re passionate about from start to finish
We view venture as a mentorship driven business and we work together as a collaborative team. Previous analysts have gone on to join venture-backed startups, attended top-tier business schools, or joined other leading venture capital firms.
You
You should have a deep passion for technology, ability to understand the mechanics of how businesses work, and a willingness to hustle and jump in head first on projects. We are looking for a diverse set of applicants – prior Analysts have come from engineering backgrounds, been startup founders, and/or have had consulting/finance experience. However, the common trait is a burning passion for early stage technology. Ideal candidates will have ~1-3 years of work experience prior to starting at Canaan.
Below are some of the qualities we are looking for:
- Intellectually curious
- Passion for startups, technology and understanding markets
- Thoughtful and imaginative
- Independent and self-starter
- Optimistic and open-minded, a relentless willingness to pursue the truth
- Hustler who can build community and a brand in the ecosystem
- Ability to think creatively and critically while juggling multiple projects at once
- POV on emerging technologies and business models
- Strong financial modeling skills and a keen understanding of key financial concepts
- Someone with a strong point of view – and a willingness to stand up for their opinions
- Someone who can thrive in a dynamic, intimate, relatively unstructured office environment
How to Apply
- If all of the above excites you, please send an email to rayfe@canaan.com with “Canaan Bay Area Analyst – your name” in the title. (Or get a warm intro to someone on our team!)
- In that email, please include your:
- Resume (attached as a PDF)
- Links to LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, etc.
- Not more than a half a page of text (no, seriously) answering the following questions:
- What sector of technology are you are MOST excited about and why?
- Within that sector, what early stage company do you think is most interesting and why?
You will hear back from us quickly with next steps.
We look forward to hearing from you!
