Role: VC Associate

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Compensation: Competitive

Start Date: Immediate

About Smash Capital

Founded in 2021 by Eric Garland, Kevin Mayer, Evan Richter and Brad Twohig, Smash Capital is a later-stage investment firm focused on high growth consumer internet, software, and technology companies.

Smash Capital invests in founders building generational brands and works to give their companies a competitive advantage by driving resonant, emotional connections with their users at scale, powered by our unique capabilities and network across digital media. . .

• Telling authentic stories that build deep connections
• Partnering with the most influential talent
• Accessing the world’s best IP
• Optimizing marketing efforts
• Collaborating with strategic partners

. . . reaching customers in the places that matter most.

At Smash, our investments include Epic Games, Reddit, DraftKings, DuckDuckGo, MANSCAPED, BYJU’S, and NoBull, among others. Smash has over $1 billion in assets under management across multiple funds. We must be among the fastest-growing firms in the history of venture capital.*

*But the lawyers want to make sure you know that we didn’t look it up, we just suspect we must be — that’s how fast we are growing.

Your Role

TL;DR: you are diamond mining. It’s a combination of art, science, engineering, and a lot of hard work: sourcing fewer, better deals and supporting the partners in all aspects of building the firm.

More specifically, you will:

• Participate in all aspects of the investment process, including: developing and researching investment theses, sourcing (by cold calling, email, LinkedIn, etc.), building relationships with founders and their teams, data collection and analysis, financial modeling, memo writing, due diligence, structuring, negotiation and documentation of deals.
• Prepare and present the case for potential investments to our investment committee.
• Monitor portfolio companies and assist with quarterly reviews with the partners.
• Work in a strategic capacity with the firm’s existing portfolio companies, as needed.
• Establish and maintain strong professional relationships within the firm’s network and industrywide.
• Help recruit top talent and retain them by fostering a collaborative and “win together” culture.
• Pitch in and help, shoulder to shoulder with the partners. We’re a small, extremely tight-knit team: from LP communication to supporting fundraising efforts and the firm’s operations, we all do everything that needs doing.

Your Qualifications

At least two years of total prior work experience including, at a minimum:

• Two years of full-time work experience at a top-tier investment bank or strategy consulting firm, or
• Two years of full-time work experience at a venture capital or growth equity firm, or
• Two years of full-time work experience in a strategy or corporate development role, or
• Two years of doing something else entirely that has prepared you to thrive in this intense, self-directed environment

Undergraduate degree and a demonstrated track record of both academic and professional accomplishment.

Great sales and relationship skills – networking, influencing, collaborating – and a proven ability to build trust with entrepreneurs and management teams.

Strong analytical capabilities and the ability to interpret data and develop an investment thesis around companies, industries and trends.

Modeling skills and proficiency in finance and accounting for technology-driven business models.

Self-motivated with an internal drive to take on the next task when the first task is done.

An ability to take direction, but not to rely on it.

Culture: Who You Are

Remember group projects, when we were kids? Remember how one kid was really the owner of the project, not because they wanted credit for the project but because somebody had to take responsibility? You were that kid.

You are intense, focused, a hacker, a pragmatist, personally humble and more concerned with the interests of the team than with personal glory.

You are a people person. You know that relationships are everything and that transactions come and go but people stick around, and they don’t forget. You are authentic in your work, comfortable with and committed to transparency and sincerity. You have outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, executive presence, and attention to detail. You are comfortable working remotely, but you prefer to get into the room.

You question orthodoxy. You ask “why?” You know there are no dumb questions and you are not afraid to ask or to say, “I don’t know.” You are resourceful and coachable. Highly organized, great at completing projects in a timely manner.

You are a creative problem solver, comfortable and successful in a loosely structured, entrepreneurial environment, less formal than at larger firms.

You are not entitled or too proud to get the coffee because you’re one of us and we are not entitled and we get the coffee.

Culture: Who We Are

We are storytellers. In an industry that likes to talk about itself, we tell stories for founders and CEOs.

Some of us have serious media bona fides and deep, decades-long relationships with Hollywood and with the press. But Smash doesn’t seek media investments – we are consumer, software, and internet focused. We use our media chops as a unique, powerful growth lever to unlock investment opportunities in the world’s best technology platforms and to add outsized value to those businesses on a vector that our competitors cannot.

We are experienced investors in gaming, fintech, health and wellness, commerce, big data, social, application software, and a host of other markets where the products and services sometimes move real people to cult-like evangelism. We like product evangelists.

Our core values are innovation, creativity, grit, passion and an ability to overcome adversity. We work very hard.

We don’t just value diversity, we know that our success will depend upon it. Like most in our industry, we’ve started in a deficit. We have to fix it. We are committed to doing better.

Our culture is fundamentally rooted in the belief that the people we attract and invest in today are the future of Smash Capital. Ours is an industry built entirely on talented people and their relationships. We believe people are everything. We run the firm that way.

We believe that cooperation is even more valuable than competition. We are too few and too aligned for partner politics. We recognize extraordinary individual contributors, but we are playing a team sport, not an individual sport.

We believe that trust is first extended and then earned. That means we give you and each other the benefit of the doubt and incentivize you to do the same. We don’t say “trust me,” but we will earn your trust.

Above all, we believe in developing great talent: allowing extraordinary, ambitious people to seek opportunities at the edges of their experience, abilities and comfort. This is a safe place to stumble — if you’re not stepping in holes, you’re not finding them.

We set out to create for ourselves the greatest career opportunity in the industry. If you’re still reading, we believe this could be that opportunity for you too.

Why We Built Smash

We started with the ambition to build the firm where we would want to go work every day.

Smash Capital began as our startup. Our culture is extremely entrepreneurial. While our ambition is to build a generational firm and to grow our organization considerably, today we are enjoying the advantages inherent in a small team. We take advantage of our speed, real-time communication and flat organizational structure every day. We are hyper aware of the critical contribution of every member of our core team, and we encourage everyone here to think like an owner.

Our founding team includes builders and creators who didn’t love the venture capital “product” we were offered as founders. We approach founders with enormous respect and a bit of awe at the enormity of what they attempt to do — the overwhelming personal stakes, sacrifice, belief and commitment they demonstrate in their life’s work. When most choose touch football, founders choose tackle. We work very hard; the founders we work with work harder.

We believe in the power of creative constraints. When brainstorming a list of potential names for the firm, we limited ourselves to one syllable, spelled like it sounds, so a then 7-year-old could say where their parent worked. The inspiration for the name Smash came from the sound of a collision in a comic book: BOOM SMASH POW.

We value, respect, and partner daily with the biggest and best-known competitors in our industry. They and we know we are a little different.

We know that our most important core competency every day is finding and winning great deals. But we know that our lasting mark is in helping great people and great companies succeed over time. That’s how our investors grade our performance and how we grade ourselves.