New technologies keep innovation going—yet when it comes to venture capital backing for some of those early ideas, someone always has to be first. Dustin Rosen, managing partner at Wonder Ventureshe is happy to be that “someone”.
A fixture in the Los Angeles and Southern California investment scene for a decade, Wonder Ventures has backed nearly every L.A. unicorn, including Honey and Whatnot. Other notable investments include Clutter, Modern Animal and Tala.
“I looked around Los Angeles in 2013 and saw that there was this amazing community,” Rosen told TechCrunch. “It really became a technology player in its own right, but it didn’t have the seed capital to help support these companies. Companies would get to the Series A level and come up to the Bay Area to raise the big name funds, but that first million dollars was still—and I would say even today in 2024—very difficult to achieve, and that’s where Wonder Ventures came from.”
Rosen has since added Valentina Rodriguez and Taylor Bolhack to the firm, which now has some new capital to deploy, securing $102 million in commitments across two funds: a $57 million pre-seed Fund 4 and a $45 million opportunity fund dollars later. .
Rosen has yet to make an investment from Fund 4, however, he did make one investment from the Series A opportunity fund in property tax savings company Ownwell. The company will write checks for between $1 million and $1.5 million, Rosen said.
Over 60 limited partners backs Wonder Ventures, including early employees and executives from companies like Snap, Honey and ZipRecruiter, and they come from the same LA and SoCal communities, Rosen said.
Wonder Ventures is the latest to inject additional capital at the pre-seed stage, an area where Rosen and other investors continue to be bullish. A few months ago, we saw more than half a dozen VC firms announce new funds — and more since then.
“Being a founder, I wanted to create this company to think about what an early stage founder would really want in terms of VC experience versus big capital,” Rosen said. “This is when founders need the most hands-on experience, helping them get from zero to one. On the investment side, we like to be the first investor in companies. We want to be the check that brings you to the business, and lack of traction is not a problem.”
He also said that where other investors focus on numbers and traction, Wonder Ventures differentiates itself by focusing on “big founders and big markets, and we’re not afraid to jump in before you’ve even built any product.” Additionally, Rosen looks for founders with domain expertise and unique, diverse experiences that focus on areas others may not consider.
As for what Wonder Ventures can bring to the table, the company’s Fund II, the first fund with institutional investors, has already returned more than double its investors’ capital and is valued at more than 8.5 times invested capital , Rosen said.
Meanwhile, the opportunity fund is Wonder Ventures’ first, continuing a trend we’ve seen in recent years of companies looking to support their successful portfolio companies as they mature.
“It’s harder to get to the next round,” Rosen said. “It’s really focused on supporting our best companies. We have 120 companies and the opportunity fund will look at all of those companies at the Series A level. We’re so early stage that we want to lean on what we think are the best early-stage opportunities.”
