Uncork Capital

Uncork Capital is a seed-stage venture firm that commits early, helps with the hard stuff, and sticks around. Really. Uncork is a seed-stage venture capital firm with $300 million under management. We are currently investing out of two funds: a $100M Seed fund and a $50M Opportunity fund earmarked for larger investments in mature, existing portfolio companies. Being a founder of a startup is hard. At times, it can be terrifying and lonely. You spend most of your waking hours grinding through impossible problems, and there are not a lot of people you can confide in. You need strong supporters who will help you work through challenges, eliminate roadblocks, offer a different perspective, and cheer when some great news is delivered. We strive to provide that support to our founders. Uncork Capital is a pioneer in the micro-VC market. Founded in 2004 as SoftTech VC, we raised one of the very first institutional Seed funds in 2007: $15M Fund II. Now deploying our $100M fifth fund, we have invested in over 200 companies. Over seventy have had successful outcomes so far. We have also totally wiped out 50 times (because building and scaling a company to success is never easy). Our companies have raised over $4B in follow-on financing over the years. In 2004, Jeff started making angel investments in emerging Web 2.0 companies. At that time, only a handful of individuals backed entrepreneurs building the next generation of Internet services: they became known as “Super Angels”. Companies they funded were remarkably capital efficient thanks to nascent cloud services. The early success of these angel collaborative investments created the underpinnings of the seed market as we know it today. After three years of investing on his own, Jeff raised one of the very first micro-VC funds in the summer of 2007: $15M Fund II. When he launched the fund at TechCrunch 40 in September 2007, many were skeptical that a fund making small investments would be useful to entrepreneurs. Seeding great companies like Eventbrite, Sendgrid and Fitbit proved the strategy was working, and Jeff decided to expand his team. Ashley Cravens joined the firm to run operations in late 2010. Around the same time, Jeff brought on Charles Hudson as Partner. Together they raised $55M Fund III, a larger pool of capital to increase check sizes and participate in follow-on rounds. In 2011, Stephanie Palmeri joined the firm after making seed stage investments on the East Coast. In 2013, Stephanie, Charles and Jeff raised an $85M Fund IV, adopting a more concentrated strategy: larger ownership, smaller portfolio, leading rounds, and taking board seats. In 2015, Andy McLoughlin, co-founder of Huddle and angel investor in 40+ startups, joined the team to deepen the firm’s business software expertise. In 2016, Stephanie and Andy became partners and raised, together with Jeff, a $100M Fund V and a $50M “Opportunities” Fund. Around this time, Charles stepped back from the firm to launch a pre-seed firm, Precursor Ventures; he remains a close friend and is currently Venture Partner at Uncork. That same year, Caden Jennings joined Uncork as Office Manager. After investing in 200+ companies since 2004, we’ve been through a lot as a team. That experience allows us to be better advisors to you.