Lerer Hippeau

Lerer Hippeau is an early-stage venture capital firm founded and operated in New York City, investing since 2010 in entrepreneurs with great ideas who aren't afraid to do hard things. The firm's core philosophy is talent-driven and generalist: rather than following a narrow sector thesis, the partners back exceptional people improving rapidly changing industries, principally in New York, on the conviction that the city will serve as an increasingly important place to grow generationally important businesses. As the firm's own Medium post on LH Fund IX states, the 'thesis' was always to back exceptional people improving rapidly changing industries and do it principally in New York — a belief that has broadly proven true over 15 years. Lerer Hippeau specializes in leading pre-seed and seed rounds, aiming to be the first institutional check into a company and remaining deeply engaged through the full lifecycle of the business. The team deploys each fund with a singular focus on 'finding the best founders before they're famous,' helping founders build from zero to one and staying in their corners for the long haul. The fund also includes several dozen portfolio founders as limited partners, reflecting the depth of the community and network the firm has built. Though the firm built its early reputation on culture-defining consumer brands — Warby Parker, Allbirds, Casper, Glossier, BuzzFeed, Venmo — it has always invested equally across the enterprise and consumer landscapes. Over the years, LH has backed companies building in robotics, infrastructure, healthcare, crypto, logistics, fintech, commerce, devops, climate, cybersecurity, gaming, CPG, and biotech. The current moment in AI is a particular area of focus: as Managing Partner Eric Hippeau noted at the Fund IX close, 'this historic moment in AI is shifting technology and constitutes a sea change for what's possible,' and the firm is actively partnering with founders who are building businesses with AI embedded deeply into every decision they make. Lerer Hippeau operates with a lean, operator-led team of approximately 20 early-stage specialists across investment and operational roles. The firm has raised nine seed funds and three Select funds (which provide incremental support to top-performing seed companies and enable selective later-stage investments), with total AUM of approximately $1.4 billion. With over 400 portfolio companies, 12 unicorns, 12 IPOs, and 159 acquisitions to date, the firm has been recognized by PitchBook as the most active local venture capital firm in New York by number of new company investments from 2010 to 2020.