Homebrew: 100 Days of Fundraising

There’s a growing trove of info to help startups raise their rounds but if you’re looking to raise a venture fund, the advice is pretty sparse. Now that we’ve publicly announced Homebrew, I’m able to share some of the details which went into its creation. My goals are threefold:

1. Pay it forward being transparent for future first-time fund managers
2. Close the investor < > entrepreneur perception gap – Satya and I believe Homebrew is a startup which writes checks instead of code. You can see our fundraising experience wasn’t that different than two startup founders might have.
3. Journal it for myself

To begin, here’s a short summary and timeline.

• January 2013: Homebrew starts fundraising from institutional LPs
• February 2013: Fundraising leaks via Fortune (yes, potential investors blab to press)
• March 2013: First lead institutional commitment is secured
• April 2013: We agree to terms with three other institutional LPs, several smaller LPs and a few individuals to round out the fund. The four lead institutions contributed ~92% of the fund and the other investors rounded out the total.

With that context let’s cover (a) how to find fund investors, (b) why we got to “yes” and (c) what a “no” looks like.

How to Find Fund Investors

While there are plenty of sources of money (individuals/family offices, strategics…