INVESTING ANALYST
Who We Are
Pillar VC is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Boston. We invest in engineers, researchers, and scientists building solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. We are currently investing out of Pillar IV, a $175M fund.
We’re entering a golden age with unmatched potential for breakthrough research to become world-changing companies. Our investments emerge from research organizations and universities at the cutting edge. We work with founders months to years in advance of commercialization, collaborating with PhD students, postdocs, and faculty. Our team helps by validating customer demand, recruiting key team members, developing business plans, navigating licensing agreements, and building syndicates with strong co-investors.
Our investments include Circle, Abridge, Algorand, PillPack, Jellyfish, Neural Magic, Hometap, Asimov, and PathAI, among others.
Position Overview
This is a front-row seat to one of the most interesting communities in Boston: the founders, scientists, and operators building the next generation of category-defining companies.
As an Investing Analyst, you’ll work closely with the broader Pillar VC investing team to participate actively in every stage of the investing process: sourcing, diligence, decision-making, and portfolio support. You’ll attend events to build your network, creatively build community, meet with experts to inform your hypotheses, and roll up your sleeves to help our portfolio companies grow. Early-stage investing can be humbling while simultaneously exceptionally rewarding.
Key Responsibilities
Source new opportunities
- Find the founders we should know via conferences, online communities, network-building, and your own outbound efforts. Mine universities, labs, and adjacent communities for emerging talent.
- Meet with founders and their prospective customers. Research markets, competitive landscapes, and underlying technology. Form sharp, well-supported views to present to the broader investment team for consideration.
Conduct primary due diligence
- Source topic experts and thoughtfully discern key information about potential investments.
Develop investment theses
- Go deep on thematic areas of interest. Synthesize expert perspectives, form your own opinions, and publish your findings for our community.
Who You Are
You’re dedicated to helping companies start and grow, and are passionate about a career in venture. You have a strong executive presence, business mindset, and fascination with science and technology.
Additionally, your peers would describe you as:
- Voraciously curious – New ideas, new fields, new people. You move fast from “I’ve never heard of this” to a real point of view.
- Technically minded – You can rapidly traverse various technical domains and yearn to learn a new topic for an upcoming meeting.
- A natural networker – You’re energized by meeting people and hearing their stories. You leverage warm introductions and aren’t afraid to build a cold outbound funnel from scratch.
- A strong writer and communicator – You can take a complex topic and make it feel obvious.
- Analytical – You balance the big picture with data to support decisions.
- A self-starter – You don’t wait for direction, you find the next thing that needs doing and do it.
Why Pillar VC
Our team operates in a high-velocity environment that is always changing. This role will require hard work, agility, and long hours, and we set the bar high for each other to bring our best to the team.
Every person who works at Pillar VC should expect their career to be accelerated through the ownership of clear work products, high expectations, the quality of companies and people in our network, and our active support of your future career endeavors.
Benefits
- We cover 100% of health and dental insurance (plus half of your deductible)
- Unlimited vacation policy
- Commute and wellness benefits
- Phone reimbursement for business use
- Free snacks, coffee, and lunch when you’re in the office