Venture

Charles Hudson’s Precursor Ventures Targets $40M For Its Third Flagship Fund, Filings Show

On Tuesday afternoon, Precursor Ventures filed paperwork with the SEC disclosing its intent to raise as much as $40 million for its third flagship venture capital fund.

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At the time of filing, no capital has yet been raised; however, it bears mentioning that it’s common for venture investors to file their Form D immediately prior to calling down at least some pre-committed capital from limited partners.

Precursor Ventures is managed by Charles Hudson, the firm’s sole general partner. Prior to starting his own firm, Hudson served in a variety of operating roles, including starting a couple of companies. Hudson cut his teeth as a venture investor at Uncork Capital (formerly known as SoftTech VC) where he served in alternating venture partner and partner roles over his more than eight years with the firm.

Hudson, one of the all-too-few black general partners operating in venture today, is also on the teaching team for Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspectives, a course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

The firm’s investment team consists of Sydney Thomas and Ayanna Kerrison, two black women with extensive startup and financial management experience. Chapman Snowden, an ex-Googler with prior founding experience, is working on a new financial technology venture as an EIR at the firm.

If fully raised, Fund III will be the firm’s largest yet. Precursor Ventures closed out $31 million for its oversubscribed second fund in February 2019, nearly one year and four months after taking down its first LP commitments.

Precursor raised a little more than $15 million for its first fund, which closed out in late 2016.

Since the firm’s formation in October 2015, Precursor has primarily focused its investment dollars on seed and pre-seed deals. On its website, Precursor Ventures explains that it’s committed to investing in companies’ first institutional rounds, typically committing between $100,000 and $250,000 to that first round, with reserves for follow-on investment.

The firm adds that it is “committed to investing in founders who represent a wide variety of backgrounds in terms of gender, race, background, academic experience and life circumstances.”

The firm’s recent investments include organization management software company Range, childcare-as-a-benefit company Kinside, and AI-enabled radiology reporting software company Rad AI.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias

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