As an early stage technology investor in Boston for the last ~12 years, I was quite familiar with the story of Dyn. Deep in the woods of New Hampshire, the Dyn team had somehow bootstrapped to tens of millions of ARR before raising cash from great investors, crossing $100M ARR, and exiting for $600M+ to Oracle (impressive they could do all of this but never answer any of my sourcing calls back in 2014!).
Unsurprisingly, after spending a few years building out and leading what is now Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure business, several members of the Dyn team got the band back together to start York IE and to more formally invest in and advise new technology startups on how to build great capital efficient businesses. The pitch was as powerful as it was simple, “We’ve done what you’re trying to do, and we’re building the investing and support platform we wish we had when we were scaling Dyn.”
I first met the York IE team while at OpenView investing in capital efficient enterprise technology companies that were facing all of the same challenges York IE was set up to help solve. Their singular focus on supporting early stage enterprise technology founders and real expertise really resonated with me. I appreciated their no BS approach and desire to get to the right, objective answer. No agenda, no desire to become famous on Twitter, just helping the founders they work with reach their full potential.
That said, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was first introduced to Kyle. He did decide to put his last name on the door, after all! I wasn’t expecting that we’d spend our first several hours of conversations focused on the importance of integrity and the values we hold most highly. Of course, we talked about investing and companies and underwriting, but much more so we focused on building something of great significance and the importance of independent thinking.
We talked about our families, and how team sports (specifically football, for us) taught us many shared important life lessons. We also bonded over the growing hivemind and group think bubble that seems to now envelope most of the Bay Area, and why that’s created an incredible opportunity to back the world class entrepreneurs building their businesses outside the Bay Area and in an aggressive – yet capital efficient – way (P.S., before my friends who are great investors and independent thinkers in the Bay Area read this and yell at me, there are of course many amazing founders building exceptional companies there too!).
I had a strong feeling that I was going to join York IE after that initial conversation with Kyle, but any doubt I had was removed after spending more time with Joe, Marshall, and the rest of the team. Their commitment to first principles and independent thinking, and to building something great is ingrained in everything they do. It’s also something they’re living and not just talking about, as evidenced by their now having bootstrapped a second company to $10M+ ARR in their hometown in New Hampshire.
I couldn’t be more excited to join the team and help deliver even more value to the teams and ecosystem we support, and to invest behind the best founders in the world – no matter where they’re building their companies.
If you’re a founder building an early stage technology company who wants to trade notes, or who is considering raising capital but doesn’t want to step on the growth-at-all costs venture treadmill, please reach out.
