WHO WE ARE
Pillar VC is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Boston co-founded by 41 leading CEOs, including the founders of DraftKings, Iora Health, Ginkgo Bioworks and Constant Contact. We’re the first-capital-in for scientists and engineers building in deep tech and bio. We make big bets on big ideas at inception.
Over half of our investments emerge out of universities. We work with founders months to years in advance of commercialization, collaborating with PhD students, postdocs and faculty. Our team helps by validating customer demand for a founder’s research, recruiting key team members, developing business plans, navigating licensing agreements, and building syndicates with strong co-investors. We’ve made over 50 investments in academic spinouts, including Algorand, Asimov, PathAI, Neural Magic, and Verve Motion.
Our investments span enterprise/infrastructure, vertical SaaS, fintech, crypto, manufacturing, logistics, robotics, healthtech, SynBio, genomics, longevity and precision medicine, among other categories. We’re proud investors in companies including Jellyfish, Abridge, Higharc, Hometap, Kula Bio, and VideaHealth.
We started Pillar VC with the belief that there has to be a better way for founders and investors to align. We began with a simple hypothesis — that if we treat founders the way we would want to be treated, good things will happen. That if we align every incentive, every action and decision to realize mutual benefit, we will engender trust, and from that, achieve profound results. It’s that simple.
WHO YOU ARE
- You have ambitions of becoming a founder or investor. You want to surround yourself with a team and an environment where you can maximize learning.
- You have a technical degree or relevant business experience. You are comfortable talking with technical leaders, going deep on topics that range from AI to robotics to climate tech to data and infrastructure.
- You are deeply curious and are a quick learner. You have the ability to dive into new areas of technology and rapidly become proficient.
- You are an exceptional networker. You enjoy learning about people and building strong relationships with industry experts across various technical fields.
- You are a skilled researcher. You are able to conduct in-depth studies and distill complex information into actionable insights.
- You are deeply analytical, and can see the big picture, but just as easily drill into the details; you thrive on understanding how it all fits together.
- You are experienced in both leveraging warm leads and building a cold outbound funnel from scratch.
- You are a strong communicator, adept at explaining technical concepts to diverse audiences.
- You are highly organized and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple projects efficiently.
- You are a collaborative team player who thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
- You’re a self-starter, and don’t require management or direction – you learn on the job. “Bored” isn’t a state that exists for you; you’re always on the lookout for new opportunities to create impact.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES
The best investors and founders in the world are voracious networkers. In this role, you will help develop Pillar’s community of founders, executives, mentors and board members, building relationships with leaders in the Boston community.
In this role, you will work as an Associate on our Investing team, rapidly growing your personal network. You will work closely with members of Pillar’s investing team, including Jamie Goldstein, Sarah Hodges, Parker McKee and Alex Reinhart.
This is a two-year role, during which you will have a behind-the-scenes opportunity to learn how our team builds relationships, makes decisions, and supports founders.
We work alongside a community of founders in our office in Back Bay. You will be based in Boston and will work four to five days per week from the office.
Our team operates in a high-velocity environment that is always changing. This role will require hard work, agility, and long hours – we set the bar high for each other to bring our best to the team.
- Support our investing team in exploring new thematic areas of interest.
- Develop comprehensive investment theses for specific sectors.
- Synthesize insights from top industry experts
- Analyze market trends, competitive landscapes, and disruptive technologies
- Conduct proprietary research and form your own opinions
- Collaborate with the investment team to create and publish comprehensive reports on our areas of interest, blending market research and expert perspectives
- Support our investment team in conducting diligence on prospective new investments.
- Build and nurture a robust network of industry experts who have the potential to support our team with diligence and/or assume leadership or advisory roles in our portfolio companies.
- Design and develop events and workshops to engage our vibrant community of experts.
