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Although I had been interning at Origin Ventures since last February, I started as a full-time Senior Associate only a few weeks ago. This past Monday, I took advantage of Origin’s work remote policy and drove to northern Missouri to experience the totality of the Eclipse of the Century. Besides being an incredible spectacle and one of the most remarkable and awe inspiring moments of my life, there are a ...

Engaging with customers is fundamental for every company and their brands. Creating a positive and rewarding customer experience has been shown to increase both revenue and customer loyalty. So what are tangible ways companies can improve their customer experience? Origin portfolio company Apptentive, a market leader in enabling the world’s best brands to manage and measure customer experience, recently held its inaugural Customer Love Summit. Seattle-based Apptentive hosted leaders in ...

Building a business is a rough and lonely road. I know from experience: I co-owned a business in college, founded an LLC at 22, was an early employee at a successful startup, and spent the last two years at an incubator. I’ve learned what resources are important as a business scales, and when a small amount of assistance has a huge impact. That’s why I am thrilled to join Origin ...

On a cold day in early 2015, I met David Rabie-- yet another eager Chicago Booth MBA student who signed up for my office hours. He pitched a student run angel fund at school. Over the course of several months, David's project was confronted with obstacle after obstacle. I was certain the project was dead each time I saw David, but David persisted, and at each visit he had leapt ...

Earlier this year at our annual off-site team meeting, our team plotted out the strategy for the next ten years of Origin Ventures. We tweaked our deal evaluation process, reviewed our portfolio in depth, and discussed strategic changes in light of the changing VC landscape. We also did an in-depth review of our current team and the gaps we have to accomplish our goals set out by our recently-closed $80M ...

As investors across a variety of food service related companies (Tovala, Tock, and GrubHub), we at Origin Ventures are constantly looking to further our understanding of this trillion dollar segment of the US economy. We are also avid eaters ourselves, so whether it is fine dining (Tock), on the go (GrubHub), or at home (Tovala), the future of this industry isn’t just financial, it’s personal as well. That’s why we ...

We are pleased to share that Origin has invested in Minneapolis-based data storage startup, Atavium, as a part of an oversubscribed $8.6M investment round. IDC predicts the amount of data stored annually will increase 10x by 2025, and CIOs are struggling to keep up with this ever-increasing data storage need. Compounding matters, CIOs who manage very large unstructured datasets can no longer throw hardware at the problem-- systems either reach ...

In late March, we announced our investment in Minneapolis-based Kidizen, leading a $3M Series A round. We first heard about Kidizen when we traveled to Minneapolis for office hours with the companies participating in the Techstars Retail Accelerator.   As an early-stage investor in marketplace companies, we’re very curious about new and novel ways that buyers meet sellers, both in B2B and B2C contexts. CEO Dug Nichols and co-founders Mary Fallon ...

Bruce, Steve, Brent, and I are excited to announce we have closed our fourth fund, exceeding our target with an $80M fund focused on series A investments in software, marketplaces and content startups. This is an exciting new chapter for Origin Ventures. Steve Miller and Bruce Barron started the firm in 1999 with their own capital. Now, 18 years later, we've built off the success of large exits of Grubhub ...

Early-stage VC fund announces five investments; opens Salt Lake City office   Chicago, IL (April 27, 2017) — Origin Ventures is pleased to announce the final close of its fourth venture capital fund at $80M, bringing its total assets under management to more than $135M.    Founded in 1999 by Steve Miller and Bruce Barron, Origin Ventures is an early-stage technology investor focused on high-growth software, marketplace, and content businesses. ...