LDV Capital invests in people building businesses powered by visual technologies. We thrive on collaborating with deep tech teams leveraging computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data. We are the only venture capital firm with this thesis. We regularly host Vision events – check out when the next one is scheduled.

We are excited to announce that at LDV Capital we are recruiting for several opportunities to join our team in NYC in 2020: an Associate, a Content & Marketing Lead and a Summer Analyst. We are a thesis-driven early-stage venture fund investing in people building visual technology businesses. We thrive on collaborating with deep technical teams that leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data. At LDV, we are a small team and work together closely on many aspects of building startups and investing. We are looking for entrepreneurial individuals who can become major contributors to LDV Capital across all aspects of empowering entrepreneurs, building a valuable portfolio, and hopefully improving the world we live in. 

• An Associate who shares our enthusiasm for innovation and empowering entrepreneurs in the earliest days of their businesses. You should have +2 years of startup experience, ideally with some VC or angel investing in your background as well. Bonus is having technical knowledge in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and/or machine learning.

• A Content & Marketing Lead who is an excellent communicator with a 2+ year proven track record as a writer, content creator and social media marketer. We would love to work with you if you have a genuine desire to expand your knowledge around deep tech, entrepreneurship and venture capital.

• A Summer Analyst who has some experience with startups or venture capital with deep-seeded interest in learning more about venture capital, market mapping, investment research, due diligence and how to build a successful startup.

What’s it like to work on our team, connecting and collaborating with entrepreneurs across the globe who are leveraging cutting-edge visual technologies to revolutionize business and society?

Last summer we had the privilege of welcoming Jorge Colindres, an MBA candidate at Dartmouth onto our team as a Summer Analyst. He spent the summer with us evaluating deals, diving deep into visual tech for our 2019 LDV Insights report, and much more. 

Jorge shares  his experience and shares a few of his takeaways from working with us:

1. Early-stage Venture Capital Is Another Form of Entrepreneurship

I’ve spent all of my professional life working in an entrepreneurial setting, and I’ve also known that I want to remain in that environment. To me, nothing feels as invigorating as being a part of building something that holds the promise of driving significant change in the way the world operates.

I initially expected venture capital to be more of a finance role, but in reality, early-stage venture capital at LDV afforded me the opportunity to explore a new version of entrepreneurship that maintained all the excitement of helping to create something, albeit from a new perspective.

Throughout the summer I was surrounded by people with entrepreneurism at their core, whether that was through opportunities we were evaluating, connecting with first-time and serial entrepreneur members at our LDV Community dinners, or with international founders I was interviewing for our annual LDV Insights report. 

Furthermore, as LDV is an early-stage firm, which often invests in a company’s first institutional fundraise, this meant that our team was quite involved in strategizing early with entrepreneurs, working with them to understand their market, and discovering other ways we could provide value to help fuel their business and drive towards product-market fit. 

With one team, in particular, I contributed to multiple brainstorming and strategy sessions with the founders pre-incorporation of their company, helped complete market sizing, analyzed market ecosystem, competition trends, added different aspects to their pitch deck and ultimately ended up helping to evaluate the term sheet and seeing LDV lead the first investment round for the company. 

2. A Technical Understanding is an Invaluable Asset

When I first started recruiting for summer VC roles, I knew that the best way to set myself apart was to leverage my technical background; I spent the last six-and-half years working as a software engineer. I naturally ended up working at a firm that was more technically-inclined.

LDV’s investment thesis is centered around visual technology: we invest in people building visual technology businesses that leverage computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze visual data. Often times, I looked at and worked with entrepreneurs building companies that employ computer vision, biometrics, robotics, and other deep  tech. 

This summer, I spent time speaking with domain experts, reading technical documentation and research papers, and, in general, working to understand the technical viability and potential of certain technologies that empower businesses. In this way, I was able to use my background as an engineer and furthermore work with others who were likewise technically-driven.

My technical background was important in my ability to evaluate deals and to dive deep on our 2019 LDV Insights report on visual technologies in manufacturing and logistics that we published at the end of the summer. 

3. A Summer Role Can Give You Investment Experience

While continuing with entrepreneurship was a big reason for wanting to spend my summer working in venture capital, I also knew that I really wanted to dive into and get an understanding of early-stage investment dynamics.

LDV is a fairly small fund, which meant that not only was I given a lot of responsibility from the start, but I also had exposure to the underpinnings of how an early-stage fund operates. I got to work on individual investments, diving into due diligence, sitting in on meetings with entrepreneurs, speaking with industry experts, and gaining experience in the valuation process and the strategy behind single investment decisions from the fund perspective. This included portfolio balancing, relationship management, market timing, and risk-return assessment among other factors.

Furthermore, I also got to explore how investment theses are formed and how funds use them to guide their investment decisions. At LDV, that meant exploring promising markets, looking out for changes in the status-quo, and understanding what it might take to make big ideas a reality. 

It was really rewarding and exciting to see an investment opportunity from initial due diligence through to investment. Of course, we also reviewed many opportunities that didn’t meet the bar for investment at that time and this was a great learning experience that that was very valuable. 

Every entrepreneurship experience is likely to be different, but I genuinely enjoyed my team this summer and can confidently say that I am walking away as a better entrepreneur and investor.