Inc. has announced its fifth annual Founder-Friendly Investors list, honoring the private equity, venture capital, and debt firms with the best track records of success backing entrepreneurs, with Genoa Ventures honored for the third consecutive year. Genoa Ventures has been recognized on this exclusive list since Inc. began including venture capital firms in 2021.
The final list recognizes 218 firms that remain actively involved with the businesses they invest in, and that have earned the trust of the entrepreneurs they support to help drive growth.
“Now more than ever, founder-led companies need financing partners that offer guidance, expertise, and understanding—not just capital. These are the private equity, venture capital, and debt firms that have founders’ backs when it comes to accelerating growth,” says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. Business Media.
Genoa invests in early-stage companies (typically seed or series-A) where the investing team has the unique experience of assessing early technology advantage, product development cycles, and market impact. Every member of the Genoa VC team has worked across the spectrum of biology and technology – as investors but also in the industry as scientists, engineers, inventors, entrepreneurs, operators, advisors, and partners. This blend of experience enables the team to effectively work with innovative entrepreneurs working to solve the world’s biggest biological and technological challenges today and in the future.
Genoa Ventures has created a venture firm that focuses on helping category-defying companies at the convergence of biology and technology to accelerate the pace of innovation, transform industries, and solve some of the most fundamental challenges to life. In 2021, Genoa raised its second fund, an $84M fund that already invested in nine new world-changing start-up companies. The firm doubled the team size to expand the support offered to portfolio companies.
To compile the list, Inc. went straight to the source: entrepreneurs who have sold to private equity and venture capital firms. Founders filled out a questionnaire about their experiences partnering with private equity, venture capital, and debt firms and shared data on how their portfolio companies have grown during these partnerships.
To see the complete list, go to: https://www.inc.com/founder-friendly-investors/2023
Introduced in 2019, the Founder-Friendly Investors list quickly established itself as one of Inc.’s most resourceful franchises. It has become a go-to guide for entrepreneurs who want to grow their companies while retaining an ownership stake. In 2021, Inc. expanded the annual list to include venture capital firms, shifting focus from its previously PE-only list, formerly known as “the Private Equity 50”
The November 2023 issue of Inc. magazine is available online now at https://www.inc.com/magazine and will be on newsstands beginning October 31.
About Inc.
The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community they need to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
About Genoa Ventures
Genoa Ventures invests in early-stage companies working in the convergence of biology and technology to accelerate the pace of innovation, transform industries, and solve some of the most fundamental challenges to life. Genoa identifies opportunities early and focuses its investments and expertise to empower the next great category-defining companies. The Genoa team has a unique chimeric blend of experience from scientific research and discovery to company-building in the life sciences and technologies sectors. The team applies this diverse experience to provide expert guidance to its companies as they scale and grow.