1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 1)

Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund, discusses pre-seed and seed funding in companies focused on the betterment of cities.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get you and Urban Innovation Fund introduced to our audience.

Julie Lein: I’m the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the Urban Innovation Fund. We are a venture capital firm that invests in startups shaping the future of cities. We invest across a variety of verticals. These are what you might consider more traditional smart city sectors like transportation, energy, PropTech.

We also like to think more expansively about the livability and economic vitality of cities. We invest in areas like the future of work and FinTech. All of our investing is done at the very early stage – pre-seed and seed. We are leading, co-leading, or, at least, a very substantive syndicate partner. We like to emphasize that we’re active hands-on investors. We do place a special emphasis on regulatory support since we’ve seen it as an area of need.

Sramana Mitra: What is your background?

Julie Lein: I come from political polling and consulting background. I ended up going back to business school at MIT Sloan. That was where I was lucky enough to meet my co-founder Clara. She and I both ended up working for startups that we would now characterize as urban innovation startups.

That gave us the impetus to launch an accelerator program after we graduated from MIT. It was focused on supporting, mentoring, and providing regulatory guidance to urban tech startups. After doing that for a number of years, we launched the Urban Innovation Fund in 2016. We have been investing together for the last seven years.

Sramana Mitra: It’s always great to meet a fellow MIT alum. How big is your fund?

Julie Lein: We’re currently investing out of a $44 million fund. We are looking to invest in 10 companies each year. Our average check size is around a million dollars. We can go up or down depending on the size of the round and the needs of the entrepreneur.

Sramana Mitra: What is the lowest check size that you write?

Julie Lein: The lowest check size that we’ve written has been about $300,000. That was a pre-seed round. What we’ve seen is many entrepreneurs are looking to raise more. Pre-seed rounds have gotten bigger. Seed rounds have certainly gotten bigger.

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about your definition of pre-seed and seed. If you’re doing a pre-seed investment, what do you want to see in the deal?

Julie Lein: When most people talk about their criteria, the three levers are team, product, and market. Everyone has their own rank order of which one is most important. At the pre-seed, what we’re looking for is the team. A lot of people ask what that means. What we’re looking for is an entrepreneur who sees a problem in their everyday life and is maniacally driven to tackle that problem.

This segment is part 1 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund
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