April 23, 2024
At 25, Paige Finn Doherty has got to be one of the youngest solo GPs out there.
Doherty began watching HBO’s Silicon Valley in her early 20s, and the show catalyzed her interest in the space. She interned at growth stage-focused firms, and even wrote a children’s book. And now, she’s done something that would be hard for anyone as an emerging manager to do—she’s raised a second fund, which is one of the most statistically difficult leaps to make in venture.
“Part of art is just practicing the leap, right? There are so many risks you have to take to start a business or a fund,” said Doherty. “You have to practice the leap, put yourself out of your comfort zone. Life is too short not to continuously do that.”
Doherty’s firm, Behind Genius, has closed its second fund at $8.9 million, Fortune has exclusively learned. The firm writes checks between $150,000 and $250,000 and has previously invested in companies like Coastal Carbon, BreakSports, and Statusphere. This thesis for this new fund revolves heavily around compelling brand stories.
“I believe deeply in the business value of storytelling, and I prioritize founders who demonstrate those strong storytelling capabilities,” Doherty told Term Sheet.
At a time when VC remains distinctly male and GPs are likely to come with a decade or two of experience, Doherty is in some ways an indication of how the industry might diversify, bringing in a broader group of players with a wider range of perspectives—which might in turn lead to a broader range of startup founders receiving funding.
There’s a natural question here. How does someone in their mid-twenties, a time when most people in that age bracket would still be associates, raise a fund of her own? As a young woman writing about finance I think about this a lot—what role does my age play when I sit down with a source or walk into a room? It’s something Doherty and I talked about at length, and it is a distinct advantage in some ways.
“In general, founders don’t want to work with their friends’ dads,” said Michael Kim, founder of Cendana Capital, which anchored Doherty’s second fund. “They’d rather work with peers or near-peers, and I think Paige helps capture that, through her personality and her reach amongst younger entrepreneurs.”
But youth is a complicated thing, especially in venture. Once, when pitching Kindred Ventures managing partner Kanyi Maqubela, he stopped her mid-pitch, saying she needed to balance her Gen Z insight with her other assets.
“I felt that she had taste right out of the gate and clearly that she was magnetic, that founders would want to spend time with her, and that she was curating well, so she would be able to generate community,” Maqubela told Term Sheet.
Talking to LPs, it seems like taking the leap with Doherty ties back primarily to her storytelling about storytelling—and unconventional, memorable taste. (Behind Genius’ portfolio spans gaming, wellness, dev tools, fintech, and creator tools.)
“I think there’s this herd mentality focused on SaaS, and I felt like she was just this breath of fresh air, and a fun person to back,” said LP and Dropbox cofounder Arash Ferdowsi.
Pankaj Kedia, an early innovator in wearables and 2468 Ventures managing partner, is a senior advisor and LP to Behind Genius, and says he feels she’s pioneering a new model around “founder-centric storytelling.”
Coastal Carbon cofounder Thomas Storwick said via email that when trying to get a foothold in the rapidly growing AI market, it’s vital to be “constructing a narrative about where you think the market might go” and that “with her natural storytelling ability, I think Paige does this better than almost anyone else.”
Ten minutes into our Zoom, Doherty and I found ourselves comparing notes on the oddest jobs we’ve ever had—Doherty’s been a calculus tutor, seamstress, and music festival planner. As a former assistant theater director making ends meet in the wine industry, I often think that having lived other lives can be helpful—you know how to talk to all sorts of people, and have surprising frames of reference for well-trod problems. Doherty and I are on the same page on this one:
“I feel like the job of being a venture capitalist is so much about context-switching,” said Doherty. “When you’re fundraising, you’re talking to a current LP or potential LP. Then, I’m talking to an existing portfolio founder and then I’m talking to a potential portfolio founder…I really love every aspect of that context-switching.”
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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