We sit down with Graham Brown, Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau Ventures. Brown brings his venture capital expertise to the table, focusing on climate tech innovation.

Lerer Hippeau has been the earliest investor in some of the most iconic consumer brands of the last decade, including Casper, Oscar, Buzzfeed, Mirror, Axios, and more. In late 2022, they announced $230M across two new funds. More recently, the fund has been an active investor in the kinds of climate and industrial automation companies we love to discuss on CLIMB.

Our conversation covers the detrimental impact of large fund sizes on the early-stage founders they back, the evolving venture scene in New York over the past decade, and what makes climate tech startups succeed in 2024. Brown is now at the helm of one of the most iconic seed funds in our business and this interview had key insights for entrepreneurs and investors navigating the venture market in 2024.

About VSC Ventures:

VSC Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund led by Jay Kapoor and Vijay Chattha where we invest in industrial automation and climate adaptation startups and support our founders with hands-on PR, storytelling, and go-to-market work with help from our award-winning PR agency VSC

Our fund has invested alongside Lowercarbon, NEA, Uncork Capital, Left Lane, Alley Corp, Obvious Ventures, Third Sphere, and other leading early-stage funds.

Through our weekly conversations on our show CLIMB by VSC, we're excited to share our work with innovative companies like Paintjet, Glacier, Concrete.AI, Presso, ⁠⁠Ample⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Actual⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Sesame Solar⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Synop⁠⁠, ⁠and Vibrant Planet⁠⁠ in addition to highlighting companies and leading voices across the early stage ecosystem