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Boulder VC firm Foundry to shutter after 18 years, 200 investments (bizjournals.com)
98 points by mooreds on Jan 22, 2024 | hide | past | favorite | 30 comments



“Given the lifespan of venture funds, we expect to continue this work for at least the next decade,” he wrote. “Our work continues to energize us, and we are as committed as ever to the mission of Foundry"

Weird article. The firm is not "shuttering" it's just publicly announcing that it's not planning to raise another fund.

For people who don't know, venture "firms" are a collection of funds, with different lifetimes, LPs, terms, etc. Sometimes there is one "management company" at the heart, but not always. It's a different structure than a normal corporation.

Each fund eventually reaches its EOL and follows a predefined protocol for what to do with the remaining assets.


We changed the URL from https://archive.li/aaKeb to the original source.

It's fine to post archive links in the comments, but it's important that the original link be at the top level (unless it no longer exists on the web).

("Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)


FWIW, the original source url is paywalled for me (in .au)

(Perhaps the "right" way to do it for HN would be to post the original url even if its paywalled, and add a comment with an archive/paywall-busting link as well?)


Yes, that's the intention, but it's all done informally, such as in my GP comment. Maybe someday we'll add more formal support for it to the software.

Or did I miss something you meant?


Nope. nothing missed!

In your roadmap for "more formal support", perhaps a way to pin the original submitters first comment to the top might be worth consideration? So that a comment providing an archive or non-paywalled link doesn't end up buried by the top comments in the following discussion? That could also help out with the occasions when "editorialising" the title is a thing the submitter would otherwise be tempted to do?


Oops, sorry. Thanks for fixing.


Valuable community housekeeping, thank you!


Brad Feld had one of the most insightful and helpful blogs, particularly before the golden era of tech/vc twitter and there wasn't much out there for folks not in the club. hope this gives him more time to post more.


He seems like a genuinely solid dude. I also got lots out of his older blogging and the book Startup Communities, and was surprised by his high email availability for random questions.


Didn't know him before. Googled his blog in case people are looking https://feld.com/blog/


He made time to speak to the boulder Ruby meetup a few years ago too.

And I've had good interactions with Seth Levine, who is quoted in the article a few times, as well.


Great books too.


Also +1 for awesome shirt choice


I’m missing the context unless you’re thinking of Chris Sacca


Interesting that they chose to bake this into their vision right at the beginning. Most VC firms that shutter simply had a terrible last fund and that stops their attraction power for the LPs that fund them.

Note: adblocker blocker active that generates a popup 'pay up or leave'.


kill sticky bookmarklet:

javascript:(function()%7B(function () %7Bvar i%2C elements %3D document.querySelectorAll('body *')%3Bfor (i %3D 0%3B i < elements.length%3B i%2B%2B) %7Bif (getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position %3D%3D%3D 'fixed') %7Belements%5Bi%5D.parentNode.removeChild(elements%5Bi%5D)%3B%7D%7Dvar htmlBody %3D [document.documentElement%2C document.body]%3BhtmlBody.forEach(function(el) %7Bif (el.style.overflow %3D%3D%3D 'hidden') %7Bel.style.overflow %3D ''%3B%7D%7D)%7D)()%3Bdocument.querySelector('.no-scroll.ths-modal-open').classList.remove('no-scroll'%2C 'ths-modal-open')%7D )()


Not sure why this was allowed, given my submission from 2 days ago [0].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39065119


I guess duplicate check didn't catch the submission as OP used archive link originally and bypassed your earlier submission. Dang changed the link later.


Ah, that might be it. It's a bug, tho. Not a serious one, but a bug indeed.


I honestly don’t see how that's a bug. The urls submitted were different…


It is a bug as there is potential to exploit this for karma farming and account reputation. Submit an archive link of already submitted story to bypass duplicate link check, once submission gains traction, admin replaces the archive link with original link but karma is farmed by archive link submitter.

This thread should have been merged into previous one and karma points should have been removed from archive link submitter.

Also a duplicate link checker upon replacing links would have caught duplicated submission. There is lot of room for improvement here.


> This thread should have been merged into previous one and karma points should have been removed from archive link submitter.

That would be fine with me. I do think that sometimes it's weird that something will hit the front page in the 2nd or 10th time it has been submitted. Good content matters but luck does too.

Finally, I submitted the archive link not really thinking about duplicates, and because I thought the original would be paywalled.


This is such software developer logic lol. From a user’s perspective this is totally not what you’d want to happen, due to a technical quirk. Being able to explain why it happened doesn’t make it right. All bugs can be explained logically. Its computers.


Foundry led our last round and as a result I was lucky enough to meet Ryan McIntyre (one of the Foundry Founders) and he's an absolutely stellar guy! Chatted about everything from thinking PageRank wouldn't work, to guitars, to making telescopes on the far side of the moon!

Wishing them all the best of luck!


VC firms and their funds should not be seen as permanent, but Foundry has had a great run.

I always reread this primer on how the 'VC' business works when I see related posts: https://www.simplanations.in/p/2-how-vc-works-a-beginners-gu...


Even it was pre decided the higher interest environment makes it harder challenge for a fund to generate capital and then return profit with similar risk reward ratio as previously. Probably is the best time to quit looking for more capital and just manage the current investments


It was a great run for Foundry. I know a few of the early investors/members of it, and it was so refreshing to have an alternative to the Silicon Valley VCs, who believed that Colorado could be a nexus/hub for technology without all the crap that came with the valley.


What happens to the shares owned by those firms? If I remember correctly I think the business can buyback or they can be resold to other shareholders?


In this case, the VC doesn't shut down entirely just yet, they keep managing old investments but no longer raise new money for new funds. According to them, this has been their plan since they founded the company.


Oh, Seth Levine is from my college!




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