Crew Capital — Investment Thesis & Preferences

Crew Capital Research Document

Investment Thesis

Crew Capital is a community-driven venture capital firm founded on a unique model: led by active operators who are simultaneously building and investing. The firm's core thesis centers on the premise that the best support for founders comes from operators who understand the current market challenges firsthand, not just from historical experience.

The firm's tagline, "The power of many," reflects their belief in community-driven venture capital. They invest in founders building category-defining technology companies while providing unmatched access to talent, customers, and operational expertise drawn from their extensive network of technology operators and executives.

Stage Focus

Crew Capital invests across the entire early-stage spectrum:

Pre-seed: Company inception and zero-to-one phase
Seed: Post-product market fit with early traction
Series A/B: Continuing to support high-growth portfolio companies with follow-on capital

The firm explicitly states "There is no 'too early' for us" and maintains 50% of fund capital reserved for follow-on investments into existing portfolio companies. They are high-conviction investors who combine thoroughness with speed during diligence.

Check Size

Crew Capital writes $500K - $2M initial checks per investment. This allows them to participate as lead or co-lead investors in many rounds, though they also fill supporting roles as #2 or #3 investors when appropriate. The check size range reflects their focus on early-stage businesses across applications, infrastructure, vertical SaaS, cybersecurity, fintech, digital health, and ecommerce infrastructure.

Lead Tendency

Leads and Co-Leads: The firm explicitly states they prefer to lead or co-lead investment rounds in the $500K-$2M range, making them a lead-focused investor for their check size. They reserve significant capital for follow-on investments, indicating deep commitment to portfolio companies and willingness to increase positions in successful businesses.

Firm Background & Recent Activity

Founded in October 2020 by Daniel Dines (CEO/Co-founder of UiPath) and Brandon Deer (Chief Strategy Officer of UiPath), Crew Capital emerged from lessons learned scaling a category-defining enterprise software company. UiPath had crossed $500M ARR with 8,000 customers and went public in 2021 at a $40B valuation.

The firm raised Fund I in 2021 with $50M. Dylan Reider joined as Partner in 2021, bringing equity research expertise from RBC where he covered enterprise software stocks at a top-ranked team.

2025 Portfolio Activity

2025 was an exceptionally strong year for the Crew Capital portfolio:

New Funding Rounds (8 companies):

Angle Health: $134M Series B led by Portage
MaintainX: $150M Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures and Bessemer
Reco: $25M additional funding (5X ARR expansion)
Remberg: €15M Series A+ co-led by Acton Capital and Oxx
Seal Security: $13M Series A led by Vertex Ventures
Seon: $80M Series C led by Sixth Street
Sequence: $20M Series A led by 645 Ventures
Taktile: $54M Series B led by Balderton Capital

Portfolio Acquisitions (3 companies):

Melio acquired by Xero (cloud accounting)
Otterize acquired by Cyera (cyber unicorn)
Subskribe acquired by DealHub.io (quote-to-revenue platform)

This demonstrates the firm's ability to identify category-defining companies and support them through complete value cycles - from seed through IPO-scale outcomes.

Geographic Focus

Crew Capital invests globally with a focus on:

United States (primary focus)
Europe (significant activity)
Israel (active investor base)
Latin America (selective investments)

Their portfolio companies span San Francisco, New York, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Montreal, Munich, São Paulo, Bellevue, Budapest, London, Boulder, Helsinki, Belgrade, and Tel Aviv.

Investment Sectors & Model Preferences

Crew explicitly invests across:

Enterprise software and applications
Developer tools and infrastructure
Vertical SaaS
Cybersecurity
Fintech and payments
Digital health and healthcare technology
Ecommerce infrastructure

Notable portfolio companies span healthcare (Angle Health, Spring Health, Cedar, Klarity), infrastructure (Aiven, Grafana, Chainalysis, Electric), sales/revenue ops (Sequence, Dooly, Subskribe, Jeeves), and industrial tech (MaintainX, Remberg, Taktile).

Decision Process & Timeline

Crew Capital operates as a partnership model with high conviction investment approach. Co-founders Daniel Dines and Brandon Deer are actively involved while Partner Dylan Reider leads early-stage sourcing. The firm "combines thoroughness with speed during the due diligence process" and is completely transparent with founders about information needs before investment.

Given their background in scaling enterprise software and their extensive networks, decision timelines are efficient relative to the depth of diligence they conduct.

Warm Introductions & Network

Crew Capital emphasizes their proprietary network of technology operators and executives. They position access to this network as core value:

Introductions to hundreds of senior and mid-level executives across functional areas
Network of leading service providers (PR, legal, executive recruiters, bankers)
Peer network of successful founders and operators who are portfolio company advisors

While not explicitly requiring warm intros, their partnership model is built on network strength, suggesting warm intros carry weight.

Founder Preferences

Crew invests in founders who are:

Experts - Live and breathe the problem they solve
Impactful - Drive step-function positive change for customers, employees, and society
Bold - Dare to create or reshape an industry
Effective - Patiently and persistently execute to realize their vision

The firm has an exceptional track record of backing founder-operators (they themselves are operating founders) and explicitly values execution ability and market understanding.

Operational Support Model

A key differentiator: Crew provides deep operational support across:

Company inception & zero-to-one: Product iteration, initial recruiting, design partner programs
Scaling initiatives: Product & engineering, go-to-market, sales, marketing, back-office, finance, legal, operations
Customers: Direct introductions to customers across their extensive network
People & culture: Recruiting, HR policies, equity structure
Fundraising: Narrative crafting, board creation, intros to complementary VCs
Advisors & services: Network of executives and specialized service providers

This operational support model is built on the fact that Crew's partners are active operators facing similar challenges in real-time.

Firm Values

Crew explicitly identifies and lives by:

Community - Surround yourself with people you enjoy working with
Humility - Be open to learning, asking questions, and being wrong
Integrity - Acting in a manner reflecting stated values
Persistence - Find a way

Team Backgrounds

Daniel Dines, Co-Founder & General Partner

CEO and Co-founder of UiPath (grew from startup to $1B revenue, 4K employees, $40B IPO)
Engineer and entrepreneur with recognition as authority on business growth through culture
Featured as "Boss of the Bots" by Forbes (2019), named one of top 25 best CEOs by female employees

Brandon Deer, Co-Founder & General Partner

Chief Strategy Officer of UiPath, leading company scaling efforts
Previously at Intuit leading product strategy for Small Business & Payments Division
Prolific angel investor supporting Expensify, BetterUp, Cedar, Melio, VTS, Chainalysis, Aiven, and others

Dylan Reider, Partner

Joined Crew as first investor shortly after founding
Former analyst at RBC (#1 ranked for small/mid-cap software, 2020) and Cleveland Research
Covered Microsoft, Salesforce, Adobe and worked on IPOs for Palantir, ZoomInfo, Asana
Leads early-stage sourcing and invested in portfolio companies including Rilla, Integration.app, Seal Security, Quarter20, Coheso, SurrealDB, Aktos

Sonia Damian, Head of Platform and Community

Leads community initiatives and platform development
Coordinates Crew's network-driven support model

Recent Company Highlights

Notable portfolio companies demonstrate thesis execution:

Cedar: $50M+ Series C raise (healthcare SaaS)
Spring Health: Series B+ stage (mental health platform for enterprises)
Chainalysis: Crypto/blockchain compliance infrastructure at scale
Angle Health: $134M Series B (AI-native health benefits platform)
MaintainX: $150M Series D (AI + industrial technology)
Aiven: Advanced data infrastructure platform
Electric: Sales infrastructure/productivity platform
Sequence: Revenue operations platform

The portfolio demonstrates strength across B2B SaaS, infrastructure, and vertical-market software with strong founder execution.

Investment Philosophy Summary

Crew Capital represents a new venture capital model where active operators (who are simultaneously building and investing in their own company, UiPath) provide authentic, current operational guidance to founders. Rather than relying on historical expertise, they face the same market challenges their portfolio companies face in real-time, creating alignment and credibility.

Their focus on community, humility, and persistence - combined with deep operational support networks - positions them as partners rather than purely financial investors. The exceptional 2025 portfolio performance (8 new funding rounds, 3 acquisitions, significant capital deployment) validates this model's effectiveness.

Check size ($500K-$2M), stage focus (pre-seed to Series B), and geographic reach (US, Europe, Israel, Latin America) position them as accessible first or second institutional investors for ambitious founders solving category-defining problems.