Ada Ventures is hiring a Principal
We are four years into Ada Ventures with £120m under management. We have as much passion, enthusiasm and determination to create a better Venture Capital product for founders and our investors as when we started the fund.
As part of furthering our mission towards our ambitious goals for Ada Ventures, we are looking to hire an Investment Principal. We’re specifically seeking someone who can both invest in the very best companies, but also oversee the product roadmap for our investment process which can augment the team’s work.
As a senior member of the investment team, you’ll be responsible for all aspects of VC investing (deal sourcing, deal execution, portfolio management) and you’ll have 5+ years of prior experience in early stage (pre-seed/seed) direct VC investing.
Alongside this, you will be responsible for leading Ada Ventures Product Roadmap — building new tools for sourcing, selection and support, and ensuring that the team are continuing to innovate in how technology can be used to supercharge VC (previous examples of innovation from our team are here and here).
You will be working alongside both of the co-founding Partners of Ada Partners, Check and Matt, along with the wider Ada team. This role would be ideal for an early-stage investor who would like to work in a fast-paced, impactful environment in a venture capital fund with inclusion at its heart.
This is a Partner-track role, with the potential to become a Partner and ultimately a GP in the firm. The ideal candidate will have already established their own investing style/preferences/brand, so that they will bring a unique angle to the existing Ada investment team.
In keeping with our values (listed here) at Ada Ventures and our philosophy of Open Venture, we are using Applied to ensure that everyone is assessed in the same way. We’ve done our best to make the process and what we’re looking for from this hire as clear and transparent as possible.
To find out more about the role and to apply — please see here.
More about Ada Ventures
We firmly believe that the venture capital product needs to change and become more inclusive — and that will drive best in class returns for our investors (see here for an overview of Inclusive Alpha and here for our thesis). That is why we set up Ada Ventures. We have changed various parts of the investment process from how companies are sourced, selected and supported. The changes we have made to the status quo of venture investing have made it possible for any founder to raise money from Ada Ventures — no matter what their background. Without mandates or quotas our portfolio is 14x more diverse than the average UK Venture fund [1]
We have invested in fast growing and highly impactful companies like Huboo, Bubble, Boundless, Materials Nexus, Micrographia Bio, Gizmo, Sidequest, MOONHUB, Greenworkx and some 40 other companies. We are still learning constantly, and our mindset is that of a fast-growth start-up, so you can expect a fast-paced, entrepreneurial culture that values teamwork. The firm is backed by a range of exceptional aligned institutions and individuals including Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital), British Business Bank, Better Society Capital, the Danish Growth Fund, Legal & General Capital, Atomico, The University of Edinburgh, Molten Ventures, Taavet Hinrikus (Wise) and Sten Tamkivi (Skype), First Close Partners and Illusian, family office founded by Ilkka Paananen, co-founder and CEO of Supercell. The team have over combined two decades of investment experience in early-stage companies, having backed a range of the UK’s fastest growing startups and championed businesses at pre-seed and seed stage that have gone on to be backed by top venture funds in the US and UK such as GV, NFX and DCVC.
We currently invest primarily in the UK but in 2024 we have expanded Ada Ventures into Northern Europe through launching the first Ada Angels European programme. There is an opportunity to spend time supporting the firm to build out the network and dealflow in “The New Nordics” as part of this role.
Application Process
- Applications open: 1st May 2024
- Applications close: 12 May 2024 (23:59 GMT)
- Applications to include a full and comprehensive list of all investments you have made including your role in each investment. The information we’d like to see can be found here.
- Interviews will be held on a rolling basis, with first round interviews held from 6 May and final round interviews held around w/c 3 June.
To find out more about the role and to apply — please see here.
The process is expected to take place in this order:
- Round 1: Initial interview with an Ada Ventures GP (Check or Matt)
- Round 2: Technical interview with an Ada Ventures GP (Check or Matt)
- Round 3: Values interview with a member of the wider Ada team
- Behavioural assessment (EDISC profile)
- Referencing
Final round:
- Informal lunch with the Ada Ventures team
- An offer is expected to be made in June 2024
- We will aim to get back to all applicants with an update by 20 May 2024
