Garden Capital

Garden Capital is a different kind of venture capitalism. Ideas are like seeds. Teams are like a green shoots. If the soil is bad, even the best shoots have no chance. Garden Capital is a place where very early stage startups can grow. Garden Capital is focused on one thing: SaaS AI startups.

What is a venture capitalist?

A VC seeks out perfect storms where these three things exist all at the same time:

Problem to solve

Technical solution

Team to make it happen

When found together, the VC invests money, and perhaps guidance. They might make intros to customers or advice on pivots, but the guidance stops at the limits of that firm's expertise. Garden Capital adds technical cultivation to this picture, opening up the possibility of nurturing a startup which might be weak on the technical front. Within this context, Garden will operate as a 2/20 fund. For portfolio companies, SAFE agreements will be preferred, following the YCombinator model where applicable. Other agreements allow Garden portfolio companies to share intellectual property with one another.

Garden Capital has a thesis based on these assumptions:

  • Some common systems are needed by all SaaS AI startups
  • Building common systems burns through 75% of the first 2 years

Additionally, any new team has basic needs:

  • marketing / sales
  • HR
  • bookkeeping
  • Legal

Garden Capital (GC) is a place to grow, where each team can focus on one thing: their core offering. GC maintains a staff of fractional experts to cover all basic needs (marketing, HR, CFO, legal, etc.). The GC plan is distinct in how each team is nurtured technologically. The idea formed slowly over years of watching how AI startups fail-- most of the time.

The founder, Graham Morehead, started off in Physics (Boston and Spain). He then transitioned to artificial intelligence and has been working in AI startups since the mid 90s. Each startup he joined had something unique, but the surprising part was how much was not unique. Each startup had to manage and clean data. Every startup had to train and manage different versions of AI models, Each startup needed an architecture to support big data and high performance computing, and more.

Imagine that every time you build a car you have to re-invent each wheel. Pushing the analogy a little, imagine that three of those wheels are identical for each car and only one is truly new. Every time Graham participated in a startup, he saw 4 wheels being engineered from scratch, only one of which was actually a new idea. That one truly new wheel is the core competency-- the only thing on which that seed of a startup should be expending energy.

The Garden investment thesis:

fertile soil and constant gardening engenders thriving teams

Fertile soil

  • Basic needs covered (legal, HR, CFO etc)
  • 75% of tech needs shared
  • Unselfish, innovative culture

Constant gardening

  • Graham leads a daily standup with leaders from each team
  • These meetings quickly resolve blockages and keep teams focused
  • Consistent connection cultivates correct company culture

Thriving teams

  • consistent progress
  • After two years each company headed for the next round or exit

We believe in what was reported by Cathie Wood of Ark Invest-- Artificial intelligence will have a much larger impact on the economy than did electricity in the 1900s or internet in the 2000s. There has been nothing like what the next decades will bring. Like Army special forces, we believe in the power of small teams. They can build novel technology when those teams are healthy and focused on growing the seeds of their core ideas.

And together, these teams are more than the sum of their parts.