Over the past decade Greycroft has funded some of the most recognizable names in the emerging grocery and retail sector, including Shipt, Plated, Boxed, and Thrive Market as well as many innovative D2C companies like Candid, Hubble, Billie, Keeps, and Penrose Hill. In early 2018 our portfolio caught the eye of Albertsons Companies and they approached us about a partnership where we would launch a $50 million venture fund together. This was a clear win-win for the portfolio companies because Albertsons is a $60 billion a year retailer, with 2,300 locations and 35 million weekly shoppers, and the fund could help companies grow quickly though this channel.

We are now approaching the one-year anniversary of the fund and are looking to hire our first Senior Associate to help us scale. The role of the Senior Associate will be to develop new investment strategies, identify promising investment opportunities, articulate and defend investment recommendations to the investment committee, and assist entrepreneurs as either a board member or observer. The Senior Associate will work directly with the Greycroft partners and represent the firm externally. The primary requirements are a minimum of two years of prior venture capital or private equity experience as well as insights into how technology is going to impact the retail sector over the next few decades.

The fund is targeting early stage opportunities (Seed, Series A) and has an average initial check size of $1 million per investment. We have a similar mandate to existing Greycroft early stage funds and are looking to invest behind world-class entrepreneurs in sectors that are big enough to support billion-dollar outcomes. While Albertsons is a strategic partner, the companies need to stand alone and build valuable independent businesses.

We have made seven investments in the fund so far and three early themes have emerged:

1. Next-Generation Retail. As we have watched the success of Amazon Prime, Shipt/Instacart, and StitchFix’s Styling Fees, we believe that membership models are the best business model in eCommerce. We also think that the next generation of marketplace businesses will be “intermediated”, with a marketplace that provides value-added services or products in exchange for a larger cut of the gross merchandise value. We are looking at new and emerging models on this theme that are in both the B2C and B2B space.

• Direct-to-Consumer Products. Our early emphasis in this category is around the pharmacy department, where products are daily use, high gross margin, and have a favorable value-to-weight ratio that lends itself to profitable eCommerce.

• Workforce Automation. We are looking at various B2B technologies that automate tasks for retailers, from reporting and compliance all the way through stock-outs and predicting product demand to reduce food waste.

If this sounds like an opportunity that you or anyone in your network would be interested in, please shoot us your (1) resume, (2) a one-page representative writing sample, and (3) any other social media accounts (Blog, Twiiter, etc.). We can be reached at seniorassociate@greycroft.com.