Brian Nichols is the co-founder of Angel Squad, a community where you’ll learn how to angel invest and get a chance to invest as little as $1k into Hustle Fund's top performing early-stage startups

Brad Feld started his first company, Feld Technologies, while he was a student at MIT in 1987. By the time he was in his mid-20s he had already sold it. He moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1993, at a time when Boulder had no startup ecosystem to speak of, and spent the better part of three decades helping to build one. Today Boulder is one of the most recognized startup hubs outside Silicon Valley, and Feld's fingerprints are on most of what made it that way.

The Foundry Group Years

Feld co-founded Foundry Group in 2007 with partners Seth Levine, Jason Mendelson, and Ryan McIntyre. The firm's structure was deliberately flat and unusually small for its size: four equal partners, no associates, no principles, no EIRs. Every partner worked on every deal. That model is rare in venture capital, and it produced a culture of deep, long-term relationships with founders.

Foundry's investment thesis focused on software and internet companies at early stages, typically backing 30 companies per fund over three years. Brad Feld investments at Foundry include Harmonix, the developer of Guitar Hero and Rock Band; Zynga, the social gaming company that went public at a multi-billion dollar valuation; MakerBot, the desktop 3D printer company that sold to Stratasys for $403 million in 2013; Fitbit, the wearable fitness company that IPO'd in 2015 and was acquired by Google for $2.1 billion in 2019; and Rover, the pet care marketplace that went public via SPAC.

By 2023, Foundry had raised its final fund at $500 million, bringing total assets under management across all funds to over $3 billion. In early 2024, Feld confirmed publicly that this would be the last fund and that Foundry would not raise again. The firm moved into a wind-down mode focused on supporting its roughly 80 active portfolio companies and 50 fund investments.

Techstars and the Accelerator Model

Feld co-founded Techstars in 2006 alongside David Cohen, David Brown, and Jared Polis, launching the first program in Boulder in 2007. The model was simple: a three-month intensive program, seed funding, mentorship from experienced operators, and demo day access to investors. Techstars grew into one of the world's largest startup accelerators, operating programs across dozens of cities and countries.

The philosophy behind Techstars was Feld's "Give First" principle, the same one that underpins Angel Squad's approach to early-stage co-investing, which he articulated in a 2025 book of the same name. Give First holds that the most valuable thing a mentor or investor can offer is time and expertise without any expectation of immediate reciprocity. That philosophy attracts the kind of mentor networks that make accelerators worth attending, and it differentiated Techstars from less founder-aligned programs.

Elizabeth Yin of Hustle Fund has written about the importance of investors who add genuine value beyond capital, noting that the best early-stage relationships are built on trust that compounds over years. Feld's career is an extended demonstration of that principle. The Angel Squad community of 2,500-plus members across 50-plus countries operates from the same starting point: shared learning, deal flow alongside experienced GPs, and relationships that compound over time. See what that looks like at hustlefund.vc/squad.

The Mental Health Thread

Feld has been unusually candid about his experience with depression over the course of his career. He has written about it publicly, connected it to the pressure cycles of venture investing, and used his platform to reduce the stigma around mental health struggles in the startup community. That transparency is part of what distinguishes him from most venture capitalists, who project relentless confidence regardless of what is actually happening internally.

The honesty extends to his investment philosophy. He has publicly discussed deals that went wrong, the pressure of fundraising cycles, and the difficulty of helping founders through hard periods. That kind of operational transparency builds trust in a way that glossy portfolio pages do not.

The Writing and the Community Building

Feld has written multiple influential books. Venture Deals, co-authored with Jason Mendelson, became a standard reference for anyone trying to understand venture term sheets. The Startup Community Way, co-authored with Ian Hathaway, is the most rigorous treatment of how startup ecosystems form and why they succeed or fail. Give First came out in 2025.

He has been blogging at Feld Thoughts since 2004, pre-dating VC Twitter by years, and publishes daily. The transparency is part of the brand: Feld shares his thinking openly, acknowledges mistakes publicly, and has spoken candidly about his struggles with depression.

Shiyan Koh of Hustle Fund has noted that the best investors in any city are the ones who are truly invested in making their startup ecosystem healthier, not just extracting returns from it. Feld built a career on that principle in a city that had nothing when he arrived.

What to Watch

Foundry's final fund will take years to fully deploy and resolve. Feld continues to be an active LP in other VC funds, having invested in funds since 1997 starting with Highland Capital Partners. He describes himself as in the "third third" of his professional life: focused on supporting existing portfolio companies, mentoring other investors, and figuring out what comes next.