Founded in 2020, Launch House has quickly become an invaluable institution in Silicon Valley. Since its inception, it’s been dedicated to a single purpose — supporting and empowering entrepreneurs throughout the various stages of the startup process.
It does so by providing an essential resource: community. Launch House offers an opportunity for like-minded individuals to come together, forming something more indispensable as a collective than each could potentially be on their own.
Part of this was born from the pandemic era itself. During a period when a sense of community was difficult to come by, people in all fields sought out every opportunity to expand their “bubble” whenever possible. This seemed like a viable way to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. Almost immediately, the founders started to see a significant number of requests from people wanting to join Launch House and embrace its ultimate goals.
From Seed Round to Series A: One Step at a Time
Little more than a year after Launch House was founded, the enterprise proved that its business model was built on solid ground: By August 2021, the founders secured $3 million in seed funding. Flybridge Capital Partners and Day One Ventures were among the participants at that time, as was Graph Ventures. All told, almost 100 angel investors helped take Launch House from its humble start to the organization it was destined to become.
In the aftermath of that seed funding, Launch House and its founders continued to evolve and expand. By February 2022, they were able to achieve much of what they had set out to do — they were positioned to become the epicenter of the “New Silicon Valley” in the Los Angeles area, in whatever shape that would take.
At that point, Launch House was able to close its Series A funding round at $12 million. Not only was it hugely successful, but it allowed the founders to open the organization’s venture arm — the appropriately titled House Capital. That particular venture is backed by a $10 million fund split between a 506(b) venture partnership and a 506(c) vehicle.
Admittedly, this is a unique structure that helps to expand the ranks of the fund’s limited partners. Of course, that’s keeping in line with the spirit of Launch House, which has always taken pride in being unique and making interesting choices whenever possible.
Currently, House Capital aims to invest much of the proceeds from that fund into the larger Launch House community. The founders have never been satisfied with resting on their laurels — far from it. They believe in the original mission that brought them together, and this is exactly the type of activity that will help take those results to the next level.
Overall, the multifaceted approach to House Capital and Launch House will hopefully change the way that people feel about startup incubation, ultimately putting the founders in a position to help support and empower the next generation of Silicon Valley leaders. When you consider the increasing returns each generation has seen compared to the previous one, it’s easy to understand why other startup founders would want to get in on the ground floor of what could legitimately be seen as a once-in-a-generation revolution.
Looking forward, House Capital and Launch House will continue to seek out and embrace promising startups in a wide range of industries. This is true of those with founders who are already a part of the Launch House community, of course — but things aren’t limited to that narrow view. There’s no specific schedule that has been outlined for investment. Instead, the fund is dedicated to finding highly talented people with as much promise as possible, and it absolutely doesn’t matter how long that takes to achieve.
