{"id":19594,"date":"2023-01-26T13:52:15","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T13:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fabricegrinda.com\/?p=19594"},"modified":"2025-07-06T16:49:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T16:49:49","slug":"fj-labs-closes-260m-third-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/fj-labs-closes-260m-third-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"FJ Labs closes $260M third fund"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Connie Loizos<\/a><\/em> reproduced from<\/em> TechCrunch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabrice Grinda says he never intended to run a venture firm. He just really (really) enjoyed angel investing. In fact, by late 2013, when he was on the verge of selling the global classifieds marketplace OLX<\/a> \u2014 his third business \u2014 he says he had already written checks to more than 150 startups with his longtime friend, serial entrepreneur Jose Marin<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019d been working together forever. It was really a family office that was angel investing at a massive scale,\u201d Grinda recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting that flurry of checks, potential LPs, including strategic investors, family offices, and founders began to express an interest in investing with them.  By 2016, a Norwegian telecom company Telenor offered to provide exclusive funding to the duo, giving them $50 million to invest toward that end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward, and their outfit, FJ Labs, has evolved from a two-man outfit to a sprawling firm with 34 employees, including eight investors and four \u201cfull-blown partners.\u201d It began to grow in earnest in 2018, when LPs committed to invest $175 million with the outfit. Now, Grinda is announcing that FJ Labs has garnered $260 million in capital commitments across a pre-seed fund and an opportunity-style \u201cSeries B and beyond\u201d fund, with backing from family offices, institutional investors, and a wide array of founders, including of LinkedIn, PayPal, Supercell, Transferwise, MongoDB and Wayfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, over time, FJ Labs has come to look less like a \u201clab\u201d and more like a traditional venture firm, though Grinda rejects the comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are a venture fund,\u201d he says, but one that does \u201cangel investing at venture scale,\u201d he insists. \u201cWe don\u2019t lead. We don\u2019t price. We don\u2019t take board seats. We decide after two one-hour meetings over the course of a week whether we\u2019ll invest or not because we have extraordinary pattern recognition that allows us to decide extremely quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sounds high risk, yet FJ Labs has results to show for its approach. Among its many investments, for example, it has bet early on outfits that have ballooned over time, including Alibaba, Coupang, Flexport, and Delivery Hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focusing on marketplaces and network effects businesses \u2014 which Grinda knows well \u2014 certainly helps. So does the portfolio that FJ Labs has built over time, which includes 900 active investments as part of what Grinda describes as the \u201cworld\u2019s largest marketplace portfolio.\u201d (Pitchbook data supports that FJ Labs was the most active venture outfit<\/a> globally in the third quarter of last year.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all builds on itself like its own kind of flywheel, Grinda suggests, pointing to the firm\u2019s deal flow to underscore the point. Through FJ Labs\u2019s 900 companies, it has connections to roughly 2,000 founders, and they \u201ccome back for their next companies, and send us their friends and employees,\u201d says Grinda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, because FJ Labs is a \u201csource of differentiated deal flow for the VCs, they invite us to their deals,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FJ Labs will get bigger still if everything goes as planned. Grinda says that the \u201cidea is to create an institution that is going to be a legacy and \u201cbe around \u201cfor decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine that Grinda, who is famously itinerant<\/a>, could stick with venture capital so long. But he says to believe it. Right now there are three problems FJ Labs would like to help address, while also making money, and none of them are minor. The first is inequality of opportunity, the second is climate change, and the third is the \u201cmental and physical well-being crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One related bet is on User Interviews, a seven-year-old Brooklyn startup that helps user experience researchers source study participants across different demographics and behavioral criteria. (TechCrunch covered its newest funding here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other startups don\u2019t easily fit into one of those three buckets, including Gravitics, a one-year-old Seattle startup that is developing living and work modules for space travel and that announced a $20 million round last year. (We covered that round<\/a>, too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, if there is a web3 angle, that also works. Just yesterday, a year-old London-based blockchain infrastructure company said it has $8.5 million<\/a> in seed funding to build private sharding capabilities for blockchain networks, with participation from FJ Labs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the firm\u2019s bets boil down to what FJ Labs\u2019s perspective on what the future of humanity looks like, offers Grinda. \u201cWe have a perspective on the future of food, automobiles, real estate, work . . . we\u2019re trying to solve the world\u2019s problems; we\u2019re also thesis driven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can find out more about what FJ Labs is funding and why from a story we published<\/a> last month about the outfit, before FJ Labs closed its newest funds.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Connie Loizos reproduced from TechCrunch Fabrice Grinda says he never intended to run a venture firm. He just really (really) enjoyed angel investing. In fact, by late 2013, when … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-19594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fj-labs","tag-techcrunch"],"acf":[],"contentUpdated":"FJ Labs closes $260M third fund. Categories - FJ Labs. Date-Posted - 2023-01-26T13:52:15 . \n By Connie Loizos reproduced from TechCrunch\n Fabrice Grinda says he never intended to run a venture firm. He just really (really) enjoyed angel investing. In fact, by late 2013, when he was on the verge of selling the global classifieds marketplace OLX \u2014 his third business \u2014 he says he had already written checks to more than 150 startups with his longtime friend, serial entrepreneur Jose Marin. \u201cWe\u2019d been working together forever. It was really a family office that was angel investing at a massive scale,\u201d Grinda recalls.\n Noting that flurry of checks, potential LPs, including strategic investors, family offices, and founders began to express an interest in investing with them.  By 2016, a Norwegian telecom company Telenor offered to provide exclusive funding to the duo, giving them $50 million to invest toward that end.\n Fast forward, and their outfit, FJ Labs, has evolved from a two-man outfit to a sprawling firm with 34 employees, including eight investors and four \u201cfull-blown partners.\u201d It began to grow in earnest in 2018, when LPs committed to invest $175 million with the outfit. Now, Grinda is announcing that FJ Labs has garnered $260 million in capital commitments across a pre-seed fund and an opportunity-style \u201cSeries B and beyond\u201d fund, with backing from family offices, institutional investors, and a wide array of founders, including of LinkedIn, PayPal, Supercell, Transferwise, MongoDB and Wayfair.\n Indeed, over time, FJ Labs has come to look less like a \u201clab\u201d and more like a traditional venture firm, though Grinda rejects the comparison.\n \u201cWe are a venture fund,\u201d he says, but one that does \u201cangel investing at venture scale,\u201d he insists. \u201cWe don\u2019t lead. We don\u2019t price. We don\u2019t take board seats. We decide after two one-hour meetings over the course of a week whether we\u2019ll invest or not because we have extraordinary pattern recognition that allows us to decide extremely quickly.\u201d\n It sounds high risk, yet FJ Labs has results to show for its approach. Among its many investments, for example, it has bet early on outfits that have ballooned over time, including Alibaba, Coupang, Flexport, and Delivery Hero.\n Focusing on marketplaces and network effects businesses \u2014 which Grinda knows well \u2014 certainly helps. So does the portfolio that FJ Labs has built over time, which includes 900 active investments as part of what Grinda describes as the \u201cworld\u2019s largest marketplace portfolio.\u201d (Pitchbook data supports that FJ Labs was the most active venture outfit globally in the third quarter of last year.)\n It all builds on itself like its own kind of flywheel, Grinda suggests, pointing to the firm\u2019s deal flow to underscore the point. Through FJ Labs\u2019s 900 companies, it has connections to roughly 2,000 founders, and they \u201ccome back for their next companies, and send us their friends and employees,\u201d says Grinda.\n Similarly, because FJ Labs is a \u201csource of differentiated deal flow for the VCs, they invite us to their deals,\u201d he says.\n FJ Labs will get bigger still if everything goes as planned. Grinda says that the \u201cidea is to create an institution that is going to be a legacy and \u201cbe around \u201cfor decades.\u201d\n It\u2019s hard to imagine that Grinda, who is famously itinerant, could stick with venture capital so long. But he says to believe it. Right now there are three problems FJ Labs would like to help address, while also making money, and none of them are minor. The first is inequality of opportunity, the second is climate change, and the third is the \u201cmental and physical well-being crisis.\u201d\n One related bet is on User Interviews, a seven-year-old Brooklyn startup that helps user experience researchers source study participants across different demographics and behavioral criteria. (TechCrunch covered its newest funding here.)\n Other startups don\u2019t easily fit into one of those three buckets, including Gravitics, a one-year-old Seattle startup that is developing living and work modules for space travel and that announced a $20 million round last year. (We covered that round, too.)\n Apparently, if there is a web3 angle, that also works. Just yesterday, a year-old London-based blockchain infrastructure company said it has $8.5 million in seed funding to build private sharding capabilities for blockchain networks, with participation from FJ Labs.\n A lot of the firm\u2019s bets boil down to what FJ Labs\u2019s perspective on what the future of humanity looks like, offers Grinda. \u201cWe have a perspective on the future of food, automobiles, real estate, work . . . we\u2019re trying to solve the world\u2019s problems; we\u2019re also thesis driven.\u201d\n You can find out more about what FJ Labs is funding and why from a story we published last month about the outfit, before FJ Labs closed its newest funds.\n ","Category":["FJ Labs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19594"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59272,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19594\/revisions\/59272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grinda.org\/zh-hans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}