Description
Soma Capital is a fund built by founders, for founders. Soma invests in brilliant teams who are “starving” to solve huge problems, push civilization forward and improve the human condition.
Soma is founded by Aneel Ranadive, who has over 10 years experience building and investing in startups. Aneel is often the earliest if not very first money in with a focus on software in consumer and enterprise. Aneel has seeded the likes of Cruise, Rappi, Embarktrucks, Astranis, Lambda School, Ironclad, Atrium, Razorpay, Alto Pharmacy, and Lendup among others. Soma Capital portfolio companies have a combined valuation of over $35bn, with over $10bn in follow on capital invested after Soma’s initial seed checks.
Aneel works with his father Vivek Ranadive, founder of Tibco Software which sold for $4.3bn to Vista. Tibco originally digitized Wall Street and powers 80% of Fortune 500 companies including many of the largest banks, airlines, retailers, hotels, casinos, and government services. Soma Capital has a deep rolodex of CEO-level relationships with some of the biggest brands in the world and makes strategic introductions for portfolio companies. Ranadive also owns the Sacramento Kings NBA team providing many influencer relationships in sports, media and entertainment. In addition to connections with athletes through the NBA network, the top artists in the world perform at Ranadive’s “Golden 1” arena from Lady Gaga to Ariana Grande, Jay Z, Travis Scott, Paul McCartney etc.
Soma Capital’s anchor investor is Bow Capital. Soma invests seed stage, then Bow Capital can invest Series A and beyond. Soma and Bow are backed by the UC endowment, which is the largest school endowment in the world ($120bn) and gives Soma Capital access to UC labs, professors, research facilities and over 22k graduating engineers per year to help portfolio co’s with hiring. Bow Capital gives Soma many resources to win seed deals and add value along the full trajectory from seed to growth stage.
Soma Capital is seeking to hire an associate to lead technical diligence and / or investor relations as well as help manage the existing portfolio, evaluate new investments and identify potential follow-on opportunities within the portfolio.
Qualifications
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Ideally at least 2 years of relevant experience either at a startup in a fast moving iterative environment, or in finance: investment banking, consulting, venture capital, or private equity. Previous experience with startups, investor relations and / or engineering is highly desired
- Excellent quantitative analysis, finance and business modeling skills (with an emphasis on valuation and corporate finance skills), strong transactional experience, and an outstanding record of professional and academic achievement
- Motivated, hard-working team player, able to work effectively in a small team setting
- Excellent interpersonal and networking skills with proven ability to develop and maintain effective business relationships
- Self-starter with strong work ethic
- Passion for and working knowledge of technology-enabled businesses
- MBA preferred
Requirements
- Primary Responsibilities (two tracks)
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- Lead investor relations effort
- Follow up with existing portfolio companies, learn the ins and outs of the businesses and update all data in Carta for Soma internally
- Maintain fund administration model and financials by owning all portfolio company valuations and markups
- Create quarterly reports for our LP’s updating them on all portfolio company performance, plus any additional learnings or insights and what they should be excited about for the future of the portfolio
- Lead technical diligence effort
- Own technical diligence on all new deals, especially when evaluating highly technical companies or founders covering industries such as dev ops, productivity, AI / ML, data science, etc.
- Work with Soma’s dev team to build out automation tools for Soma and Soma’s portfolio companies
- Help evaluate and run recruiting for technical interns
- Lead investor relations effort
- Additional Responsibilities
- Stay organized and add value to portfolio companies, for example by learning Soma’s enterprise network and making strategic introductions for customer acquisition
- Organize dinners and events with portfolio companies to stay up to date with their performance, and connect the right founders to one another at the right time
- Perform industry / sector and company analysis, and company due diligence
- Meet with management teams and industry experts to help source new ideas
- Build investment cases for specific companies, writing investment memos and presenting opportunities
- Screen, analyze and help execute investments in to new companies
- Support deal negotiation, winning the deal and closing
- Build relationships with Soma Capital’s advisors and connect them with the right portfolio companies at the right times to add value
- Network with LP’s and help bring them in to follow on investment opportunities putting together deal memo’s and SPV’s