Starting Line

Starting Line is a fund for dreamers. Because we’re dreamers ourselves.

We speak your language. We live and breathe dreams. It’s all we know. We believe that every entrepreneur deserves an investor who is as obsessed about their business as the builder themself.

Here’s the vulnerable truth: this fund shouldn’t exist. There was no silver spoon. No anchor investor. No corporate sponsor. Our first fund, $17M launched in 2018, was raised one painstaking check at a time. It was willed into existence with the help of our mentors and a bit of good luck when the 2018 bitcoin boom finally gave us enough capital to make our first investments.

Our second fund, $30M launched in 2021, feels no different. We have so much to prove - and are unbelievably hungry to win big. That means that unlike many investors we work for you, and not the other way around.

Starting Line invests in founders who are willing to take on substantial personal risks, out of fear of living a life of regret. That fear of wondering what life might have looked like if you’d just gone for it.

We invest in founders who build backward: beginning with their vision of what the world should look like with their product, and methodically working backward to build each small step along the way.

We invest in founders who are obsessive about their own products and have calculated reasoning for each decision they’ve made.

We invest in founders who aren’t afraid to say “I don’t know” and “I was wrong” - because humility is the hallmark of balance and self-awareness.

We demand these principles because they’re the values that enable this fund to exist. Ezra personally drained his savings account to launch Starting Line because he believed that Chicago deserved better: a relatable, approachable, tolerant, diverse, and world-class fund in the city of Chicago.

We've even taken the drastic steps of open-sourcing everything you will need to know about Starting Line:

• Our Operating Manual
• Our Quarterly Letters
• Our Mental Health Policy

You have our commitment to be unrelenting in our pursuit of your success. Because dreams are so much better in actuality.

Sincerely,

Ezra, Haley, Ade, and Scott