All Perspectives

Giving Back: From Internships to our Co-op Program

This is part 7 of 10 of our 10 Years of Laconia Series.

When we launched Laconia, we knew education and mentorship would be central to our mission. Our first step in cultivating the next generation of venture talent was practical: As a small, growing firm, we needed help with everything from updating our CRM to conducting due diligence. We started an internship program, bringing on two to three paid interns throughout the year.

From the beginning, we approached our internship program differently than most firms. These bright, curious students and young professionals brought fresh perspectives, challenged our assumptions, and made us better investors. We found ourselves dedicating significant time to mentoring them, including them in investment meetings, bringing them along to board meetings, and teaching them how to write investment memos.

Our interns went on to join portfolio companies, become full-time investors, and build their own startups. (One of them even ended up a Partner at Laconia!) Word spread, and soon we were receiving hundreds of high-quality applications for just a handful of spots, and I started to tear my hair out—how could it be that there are so many talented people who want to learn about venture capital and leverage their skills to help startups, and we only have 2 spots?

I couldn’t get these questions out of my head: What if we could scale this impact? What if we could create a program that would expand access to venture capital education while maintaining the hands-on, transparent approach that made our internship program successful?

In 2021, we transformed our internship track into a fellowship program and launched the Venture Cooperative with a clear mission: to create the most accessible path into venture capital. We took everything we learned from our internship program—the importance of real-world exposure, the value of transparency, the power of hands-on learning and built it into a scalable format that could reach hundreds of participants globally.

The program's impact has been significant. In just a few years, we've trained over 1,300 fellows from diverse backgrounds across the globe. Our fellows include successful founders, operators transitioning to investing, angel investors seeking institutional experience, aspiring fund managers, and career transitioners. Most notably, 80% of our fellows come from underrepresented backgrounds in venture capital.

The Venture Cooperative's strength lies in its depth of engagement. Fellows don't just learn theory; they participate in live deal flow, investment meetings, and due diligence. They get direct mentorship from our investment team and network with industry leaders. They also have skin in the game: if a fellow sources an investment that we make, they share in the upside.

The program's benefits flow both ways. Fellows expand our market footprint and deal flow—they've identified over 300 startups, leading to multiple companies in due diligence and completed investments. They become informed potential LPs—six program participants invested in Fund III, without the burden of the typically exclusionary high investment minimums. And they strengthen our network—we even met Mirit Lugassi, now an Associate at Laconia, through an event invitation from a Venture Fellow.

Our fellows' successes validate the program's approach. They've launched their own funds, started venture studios, created angel syndicates, and spun off their own fellowship programs.

The evolution from our internship program to the Venture Cooperative mirrors Laconia’s broader journey: we started small, stayed curious, and weren’t afraid to think differently about how things “should” be done. identifying opportunities, testing solutions, and scaling what works. We saw an opportunity to create impact at scale while staying true to our values of transparency, collaboration, and community.

As we approach our 10th anniversary, the Venture Cooperative represents one of our proudest achievements. It's a testament to our belief that venture capital can—and should—be more accessible, more diverse, and more collaborative. By giving back and opening doors for others, we've not only helped shape the next generation of venture talent but also become better investors and builders along the way.

Here's to the next decade of learning, teaching, and growing together.

Geri Kirilova

Our Unique LP Base and Fund Structure: An Entrepreneurial Approach

This is part 6 of 10 of our 10 Years of Laconia Series.

We just don't fit in. Our personality has always been that of outsiders. This outsider identification is likely what drove us to become founders in the first place, both as operators and as venture capitalists. We are drawn to entrepreneurial niches that pique our curiosity, where there’s a unique fit, and then we build something meaningful around that opportunity. This is precisely how we built Laconia.

Laconia is the culmination of this approach, consisting of three core seed funds, a fund of funds, a number of later-stage SPVs (special purpose vehicles) allowing us to capitalize on our pro-rata rights, and GP interests in two blockchain infrastructure funds. We call this a horizontal approach to building assets under management (AUM). It enables us to achieve scale without losing our early-stage founder spirit. While we recognize the incentives and advantages of growing AUM, we’re committed to doing so without sacrificing our core strengths in seed-stage investing, upside potential, or alignment with our LPs. Our philosophy is simple: we make money when they make money.

A Unique LP Structure

Our LP structure sets us apart. Instead of relying on institutional investors, we’ve cultivated a base comprised primarily of family offices and high-net-worth individuals. This structure allows us to foster a more personal and collegial relationship with and among our LPs. By prioritizing engagement and open communication across all of Laconia’s activities, we’ve made education, collaboration, and community central to our operations. These principles not only enhance the value we provide to our portfolio companies but also make our partnerships deeply rewarding on a personal level.

Balancing Scale with Foundational Values

Over the past decade, we’ve grown Laconia from a start-up to a diversified investment platform. Yet, we’ve never lost sight of our identity as founders and entrepreneurs first. This identity drives our curiosity-driven, outsider approach to investing. We’ve consciously rejected the traditional founder/VC dichotomy, recognizing that such a divide can undermine the trust and collaboration essential to building successful companies. For us, bridging this gap isn’t just practical—it’s also more enjoyable.

Our horizontal approach to AUM growth allows us to remain nimble and aligned with the founders we back. By maintaining this balance, we’ve created a model that serves both our investors and our portfolio companies while staying true to our entrepreneurial roots. Laconia’s success is built on this foundation of trust, alignment, and curiosity—principles that guide us as we continue to navigate and shape the venture capital landscape.

David Arcara

We Didn't Follow the Lead Investor: How We Learned to Love Due Diligence

This is part 5 of 10 of our 10 Years of Laconia Series.

Power laws seem to be ever-present in human endeavor, or at least in the conduct of rigorous due diligence (DD). Warren Buffet famously noted that a receding economic tide reveals who’s swimming naked. A view into the conduct of VC due diligence can be just as revealing.

To be fair, there is some impressive DD being executed within our industry, but we learned early on that when it comes to how many firms actually conduct rigorous DD, let’s just say that the 80/20 rule is still very much alive and well.

Early on as angel-investors-turned-VCs, we were inclined to be in awe with “institutional” investors. After all, they were the big kids vetted by LPs and empowered by fee-funded resources. We couldn't wait to be in syndicated deals with the pros, hungering for all that we would learn from them. And learn we did; the good, the bad, and ugly!

Fortunately, it was an early deal that humbled our naivete. We were invited into our first syndication with some very established VCs; a pinch-me moment. Part of the syndication was an opportunity to see for the first time other VCs’ DD and deal memos. Holy grails of learning, we thought.

Ouch! Where was the detailed P&L analysis, thoughtful bottoms-up TAM assumptions, investigative insight into the founders, prospective customer feedback, pro-forma org chart visualizing the functional and reporting to be built with our capital, a granular map of competitive risks; we could go on. So much was either missing or superficially commented upon.

Our own analysis revealed some key concerns. And yet, these were the pros. They were intuitional investors with years of experience. Maybe we were missing something. We placed more weight on their reputation than we did on our own analysis and moved forward with the investment. And that was the last time we did that!

Original and rigorous DD, and not following the VC pack, became our bedrock tenant, so much so that we have led more deals than not, even when we are not the largest check. We have learned that the value of sound DD goes beyond the identification of a good deal – it can build lasting trust with founders. The DD process, when done rigorously, can help a company create a more effective capital strategy and show a founder that we are willing to roll up our sleeves and work side by side with them. It also produces better ROI!

David Arcara