Startup incubator DVx raises $100 million
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Jon McNeill. Photo: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
DVx, a startup incubator co-founded by Tesla and Lyft veteran Jon McNeill, tells Axios that it's raised $60 million in new funding, for a total of $100 million.
Why it matters: Most incubators are structured like traditional VC funds, but DVx is an operating company. Kind of an early-stage version of Berkshire Hathaway (albeit minus the decades-long track record).
- No management fees, with investors essentially getting stock in the startups that it creates. When a DVx company has a liquidity event, those shares can either be liquidated or rolled over.
- Backers include a mix of college endowments, family offices, and foundations. Plus one outside VC fund.
What they're saying: "Venture used to be all about the carry, but it's become about the fees," says McNeill, who stepped down as Tesla's president to help take Lyft public in 2018. "The only way we make money is if the value of our companies goes up."
- "Our job is to keep the overhead low, get companies scaled and then bring in other investors to test that we're not smoking our own product," he adds.
- McNeill says that his "two muses" are Flaghip Ventures (in terms of building companies from scratch) and Sutter Hill Ventures (in terms of an evergreen structure, even though SHV isn't an opco).
Zoom in: DVx has more Tesla lineage than just McNeill.
- Its portfolio companies include a pair with teams out of Tesla: Curbee, which provides Tesla-like mobile service for auto dealers, and e-commerce inventory management platform Atonomic.
- DvX co-founder Karim Bousta is a former Tesla exec who later led Getaround as CEO and was an operating partner with SoftBank Vision Fund. Its third co-founder, Henry Vogel, previously formed BCG Digital Ventures.
