Leader or follower? Types of VC Investors

Hector Shibata
4 min readDec 2, 2021

We believed the world didn’t need another commoditized venture capital firm.- Dan Levitan

Photo by Jezperklauzen on iStock

In the Venture Capital ecosystem, every entrepreneur is looking for capital to develop their business and make it grow. There are multiple types of investors that participate in the industry, which can be classified according to geography, industry, stage of investment and, finally, in followers or leaders. Usually funds are not promoted by their position as a leader or follower in an investment round, however, entrepreneurs need to be able to identify them and make the best decisions.

Founded by Joe Montana, Liquid 2 is probably one of the best quarterbacks of all time. This fund could be classified as a follower since out of 246 investments, he is considered a lead investor in only 7. (Crunchbase)

The main characteristic of Venture Capital funds is to have a clear investment thesis, which specifies the interests that must be preserved for its Limited Partners, and based on this is that the managers take investment positions in each venture.

Knowing the “lead investors” and “followers” will allow the entrepreneur to make better decisions, since every round requires a leader and a syndicate to be successful. The lead investor is the one who, together with the entrepreneur, defines the terms of the round. It…

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Hector Shibata

Investor in VC/growth/PE supporting startups and VC funds in the US, Latam, Europe, India and Israel. Also, Fintech entrepreneur, IB, board member and speaker.