👉🏼 Designer Fund Partnership applications are now closed. Join our newsletter and follow us on Twitter to get notified when applications open up in the future.
We view our relationships with founders and companies as long-term partnerships, not deals. When we invest in you, we apply the best practices we’ve learned over the past decade investing and serving multi-billion dollar companies like Stripe, Gusto, Notion, Commure and Netlify.
Designer Fund Partnership is the best investment and design support offer for early stage startups. It includes an average investment of $500K, monthly design help to hire and manage exceptional design teams, expert product and brand design advice, and professional development alongside our community of top designers.
How our investment works
During open application periods, you can apply for an average investment of $500K and design support and we’ll respond within one week with a status update or invitation to meet. We're looking for early stage companies, Pre-seed to Series A, that use design to improve health, prosperity, and sustainability for all. Our average investment is $500K for 5% but we understand that may not make sense for every company. Depending on your traction and funding to date, we can adjust our investment terms. We recommend that you apply regardless of your stage, location and fundraising timeline.
How our design support works
New Designer Fund Partnerships will kick off by this December and include monthly design help tailored to what you need throughout 2023. We’re not an accelerator and we don’t have a curriculum you have to follow. Rather, we focus on the following types of collaborative work sessions when you need them most:
- Kickoff: We start with an onboarding meeting to better understand your milestones for the next year and how we can best help you accomplish them.
- Hiring: We assess your design needs and support your recruitment process whether you’re looking for a project based contractor or a full-time employee.
- Design management: As you hire a team, we can coach them to overcome challenges while scaling high-performing design teams.
- Design advice: We host office hours to provide feedback on your product, brand and how to use design strategically across your business.
- Professional development: We connect you to design leaders and advisors in our community for specific expertise via the Designer Fund Collective private Slack workspace and invite you to members-only events and trainings.
- Pitch support: We make warm introductions to potential customers, lead VCs and value-add investors, hone your pitch, and develop an outreach plan.
After one year of monthly design help, we’ll shift to a quarterly cadence and help with any of these areas on demand. You’ll continue to have access to the growing Designer Fund Collective community, how-to resources and professional development opportunities as we strive to keep adding value long after the seed stage.
How we add value
We help you hire and manage great design talent
With our funding, you should be able to hire design talent and take your team to the next level. We help throughout the interview process to hire the right type of designer, from a project based contractor to a full-time employee, and ensure the relationship yields results. We maintain relationships with curated freelancers, studios and designers looking for new opportunities. We promote your company to thousands of designers through our newsletter, social media and job board. As you hire a team, we can coach and mentor them with design leaders in our network who've managed high performing teams from early to growth stages at scale.
Landscape was a Designer Fund referral. We’d been working with Ben and Enrique for the past few years and trusted their recommendations and guidance. They're the best in the design community!.Max Hsieh, CTO of Forma
We provide expert design advice when it matters
We provide office hours with our network of expert advisors to help guide you with the latest best practices for designing a world-class product and brand to grow your business. For example, you can request in-depth design reviews to walk through new features end-to-end, get assistance with strategic projects like improving your current design process and we can participate in design sprints. We give feedback based on the unique context of your product, team and company instead of cookie cutter advice.
I thought Office Hours was an excellent event! Incredibly high quality of advisors, and you all did a great job making the event fun + keeping on track.Gloria Lin, CEO of Siteline
We level up your team with our network of design leaders
As part of our Designer Fund Partnership, you and your design team are invited to be members of Designer Fund Collective, our community of 100+ successful founders, advisors and design leaders at companies like Stripe, Airbnb, Slack, Instagram and more. You can ask specific questions, access how-to guides and make connections via our private Slack workspace. You'll also receive invitations to members-only events and trainings for your team like our Business Value of Design and Designing Stories workshops. Our goal is for your team to learn how to use design strategically across your company from product to sales, recruiting and culture.
I have really enjoyed being part of the Designer Fund community. The Business Essentials for Designers workshop really helped me in my first job and I’ve learned so much from the community since then that has continued to shape my design journey.Rachel Arredondo, UX Designer at Whipsaw
We hone your pitch to close sales and investors
We help you navigate finding a lead VC and value-add investors by making warm introductions and sharing references. We curate lists of recommended co-investors including top-tier angels, seed funds and VC firms. We can also hone your pitch to close investors and customers through feedback sessions, improving your decks, and developing an outreach plan. We aim to be one of the most valuable investors on your cap table and earn the right to continue investing in your company from Seed stage through Series B. Unlike consultants, we’re investors and partners in your business with real skin in the game so our interests are aligned long-term.
Designer Fund helped us get our pitch ready and introduced us to a great lead seed investor we went with.Warren Lebovics, Co-founder of Pequity
How Designer Fund Collective works
When you work with Designer Fund, both of our General Partners will work directly with your team. We also aim to match you with a design expert from our network who will provide additional support as an angel investor and/or formal advisor to your company. Our standard agreement we recommend using with formal adviors is 0.1% equity for an average of four hours per month. In addition, we invite you to become part of Designer Fund Collective, a community of some of the best founders, angels, advisors and design leaders in tech from companies like Asana, Dropbox, Instagram, Faire, Pinterest, Shopify, Square and more, who will help you and your design team succeed.
How our application works
You can apply for an investment and design support here by October 31st and we’ll respond within one week (7 business days). The earlier you apply the better so we have time to get to know each other. Our decision-making process typically happens in 4 steps:
- Review your materials by November 9th — We’ll review the info, deck and materials you shared with us and respond within one week with a status update about whether to meet.
- Intro meeting by November 18th — If there’s a potential fit, we’ll schedule an intro meeting to learn more about your team, market and product.
- Q&A and references by December 9th — Then we’ll follow up with questions about key risks and/or a follow-up meeting. In addition, we usually speak with a few references to better understand your team and customers.
- Finalize Investment by December 16th — Lastly, we’ll finalize our investment terms based off your current or last round financing. We also want to ensure you’re committed to building a world class design team and will carve out the appropriate budget for your stage.
After you submit your application, our goal is to make a decision as soon as possible on whether a Designer Fund Partnership makes sense, however, scheduling logistics may stretch our timeline to 3-6 weeks. If our application schedule doesn’t fit your timeline, we recommend that you still apply and note your preferred timing in your application. For more details, check out our FAQ.
👉🏼 Designer Fund Partnership applications are now closed. Join our newsletter and follow us on Twitter to get notified when applications open up in the future.
Designer Fund was instrumental in helping us find the right lead VC. We felt we had a leg up because of their network, insider recommendations on firms and partners who would be a good fit for us, and warm introductions. Lead VCs would never provide that value because they just sell themselves.Phil Vander Broek, Co-founder of Dopt
FAQ
Designer Fund Partnership is the best investment and design support offer for early stage startups with an average investment of $500K, monthly design help to hire and manage exceptional design teams, expert product and brand design advice, and professional development with our community of top designers.
Our average investment is $500k for 5% but we understand that may not make sense for every company. Depending on your stage, traction, and funding to date, we can adjust our investment terms.
We ask for pro rata rights for the next two rounds of financing, typically through Series B, along with information rights because we strive to be long-term partners. Over the years we’ve learned that as our partner companies become more successful, their design needs don’t decrease, they increase with the complexity of the organization. It’s important to us that our interests are aligned long-term so we can continue to add-value as you scale your design team and face new challenges we can help you overcome.
Yes! We can help accelerate your fundraising process by honing your pitch, developing an outreach strategy and making warm introductions to potential lead VCs and value-add investors.
We’re primarily looking for early stage tech startups, Pre-seed to Series A, with mission-driven founders who value design that are based in the US. However, we’ll consider making exceptions for later stage companies.
- Founders who are mission-driven, value design and come from diverse backgrounds
- Businesses that are inherently good for the world and align with our desired impact outcomes: prosperity, health and sustainability for all
- Orders of magnitude better products compared to alternatives
- Multi-billion dollar addressable markets with poor user experiences
During open application periods, apply as early as you can before our deadline. Don’t hesitate to apply regardless of your stage, location, and fundraising timeline.
We recommend that you still apply and note your preferred timing in your application. We also recommend you get a referral to us.
If you miss our application deadline, we encourage you to still apply. However, our response time may vary as we’ll be focused on serving our new partner companies. We also recommend you get a referral to us.
No! We love traction and signals of product-market-fit.
Yes, we’re happy to co-invest with other investors. As collaborative, value-add specialists, we complement lead investors, seed funds and angels. If you don’t have new financing terms set by a lead investor, then we’ll ask to invest on our standard terms or base our offer on your last round of funding.
Apply before October 31st and we’ll respond within one week. We aim to decide whether to partner in less than a month by December.
Approximately 8 per year, however, this may change depending on the quality of applicants.
Generally we prefer startups with mission-driven founders who value design and have a team with complementary skill sets across business, engineering and design.
No, but we prefer that you have a designer on your team. We also look for evidence that the founders value design and are committed to investing in design as strategic advantage for the business.
We mostly invest in U.S. companies however we’ll consider exceptional international companies.
No, but we’re happy to co-invest with accelerators and incubators. In your application to us, let us know if you’re considering participating in an accelerator and whether you were accepted so we can prioritize your application. We don’t have a curriculum you have to follow. Our Partnership is based on monthly design help that’s tailored to what you need through 2023.
We’d like to meet in person at least once during the first year of our partnership, but it’s not a requirement. The majority of our collaborative work sessions can be done remotely, or in major U.S. cities like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.
Historically we’ve mostly invested and partnered with startups that are referred to us. Now given the nature of remote work, distributed talent and our D&I efforts, we aim to increase access to funding and design resources by enabling any founder to apply to partner with us.
Designer Fund Partnership is our new model for investing in early stage startups with improvements including:
- An inclusive application and streamlined process
- Monthly design sessions focused on the most common questions and challenges early stage startups face with design
- Membership to Designer Fund Collective’s growing community of founders, designers, and advisors
- New professional development opportunities including events and trainings like our Business Value of Design and Designing Stories workshops
Designer Fund Partnership is different because of the improvements we've made including:
- An inclusive and streamlined application process
- Monthly design sessions focused on the most common questions and challenges early stage startups face with design
- Membership to Designer Fund Collective’s growing community of founders, designers, and advisors
- New professional development opportunities including events and trainings like our Business Value of Design and Designing Stories workshops
Founders and designers from Designer Fund Partnerships are invited to become members of our Designer Fund Collective community, but it’s not a requirement. Through the Designer Fund Collective private Slack workspace, members-only events and trainings, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with design leaders and advisors in our community to share expertise and resources. Long-term our goal is for Designer Fund Partnerships and Designer Fund Collective to be mutually beneficial and sustainable.
That’s great! You will be offered the same Designer Fund Partnership benefits.
Both of our General Partners will work directly with your team. We also aim to match you with a design expert from our network who will provide additional support for an average of four hours per month as an angel investor and/or advisor to your company.
Generally, we work together on a monthly basis for the first year and quarterly basis thereafter. You can reach out to us anytime and request support as needed.
We also aim to match you with a design expert from our network who will provide additional support for an average of four hours per month as an angel investor and/or advisor to your company.
As part of our Partnership, we'll share a roster of our advisors you can contact for ad hoc questions and occasional office hours. If you would like to have more time with an advisor on an ongoing basis, we'll help match you with one (double opt-in) and recommend setting up a formal advisory agreement on our standard terms, e.g. 0.1% or $10K for 1 year, depending on your company stage.
Typically angels and advisors don’t make large investments and aren’t dedicated to investing full-time. They usually only help for a period of time with narrower expertise, and then become passive. Designer Fund makes larger investments, has been specializing in early stage venture for nearly a decade and is committed to being a partner long-term. We’re complementary to design angel investors and advisors on your cap table and welcome collaborating with them because there is never a shortage of design work to done. We also actively try to match you angels and advisors in our network who can add-value.
There are two ways to work them:
- Design angels: during our application process we’ll invite relevant design angels in our community to review your application, and if there’s mutual interest, we’ll introduce you to consider adding them on your cap table
- Design advisors: after we’ve made Designer Fund Partnership offers, we’ll invite relevant design advisors in our community to review your application, and if there’s mutual interest, we’ll introduce you to consider adding them as a formal advisor to your team. In addition, we can connect you to design advisors in our network to share domain expertise informally on an ad hoc basis.
Unlike consultants, we’re investors and partners with equity in your business, so our interests are aligned long-term. We’re complementary to design freelancers and studios who are often great for specific expertise that may be needed at various stages of the company. We maintain relationships with curated freelancers and studios that we can recommend and help manage those relationships to effectively get the best work from them.