An early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, we've invested in some of the most iconic companies of our generation, which include Uber, Airbnb, Draftkings, Pillpack, Doctor on Demand, Astra, Robinhood, ipsy, among others.

Some real talk...

Why did I choose ACME? Culture, culture, culture. There are many ways to succeed in venture, but life is short and I’d rather do it with people whom I deeply love and respect. My friends at ACME—they are more than colleagues—are some of the smartest, kindest, goofiest people I’ve ever met; and they’re all built with DNA toward servant leadership. That low-ego, collaborative nature is really rare in venture. We constantly hear from founders, both in our portfolio and outside, how unique that is.

What is the most valuable lesson I've learned thus far in venture? At this point, hopefully everyone has watched “Ted Lasso” (if not you should!). There’s a saying from one of the players in the show, “Football is life.” One of my colleagues joked recently that VC is life. There are many ways to interpret that. One that is most profound for me is that all compartmentalizations are simply illusions. For me, that means really focusing on becoming the person I want to be and knowing, from that core, my work will speak for itself. Whatever mental blocks and old defense mechanisms I have as a person, they will inevitably show up in my work. In wading into those depths, I can grow into being a better human, investor, friend, etc. That is what Ted Lasso so beautifully captures. Teams don’t win from more drills: It’s the personal growth that enables talented players to get out of their own ways and fulfill their highest potential. VC is life.

A Salon is an intimate gathering of at least 7 women who meet regularly for thought-provoking conversations. Too often, we float along in the mindlessness of our day-to-day grind. The goal of a Salon is to carve out a time and space in our busy lives to stop, reflect, and recalibrate. It becomes a forum to talk about things that you don’t otherwise talk about. Members of each Salon decide the rest - what to talk about, whom to invite, where to meet, etc.

The only foundational rules are that Salons meet regularly and always in person. This allows members to share personal stories and foster deeper friendships over time. Embarking into the foreign is always much easier to do with familiar faces; a successful Salon creates a safe, tight-knit community to explore intimidating questions and radical ideas.

I led a team of volunteers from US Digital Response and partnered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to automate the collection of hospital data. The project enabled Pennsylvania to launch an online dashboard to track the number of available hospital beds and ventilators on a county-by-county basis. Access to this data saved staff dozens of hours per week. One of the core tenets of our team was to not require any additional time or intervention from healthcare workers, so those hours saved went directly back to the front lines.

I published my undergraduate thesis on decision-making in venture capital. It was inspired by my experiences starting 3 companies in college and raising some venture funding. Venture seemed such a black box to me. In the course of researching and writing my thesis, I learned that integrity and authenticity matter in business. So much of what investors do is seeing if there's alignment in what goes on in the "front stage" and the "back stage."

For early stage investors, determining character and authenticity ** is ** acting out of financial considerations. Deconstructing how investors parse through their interactions with founders was an integral part in making sense of how investors adjudicate "quality" and "excellence" in potential investment opportunities.

While factors that build a strong case for a startup's capacity to succeed are important, the biggest deal breaker in any potential deal was whether or not the investors felt they KNEW the entrepreneurs. Comfort in their decision to back or not back a venture stemmed from their understanding of how the entrepreneur would actually think or react to unpredictable situations in the future. The same phenomenon also occurred when investors choose which other investors to work with - either in sourcing or syndicating deals together. The other investors who they felt like they KNEW - from having a track record of working together or a good reputation in the ecosystem - they felt comfortable trusting.

This thesis ended up being taught as one of two required readings by the late David Cromwell, former CEO of JPMorgan Chase Capital Corporation, in his Yale School of Management course, “Venture Capital and Private Equity Investments.” One of my hopes in the near future is to refresh some of the data in this work and share the insights with the broader startup ecosystem.

"For this issue of Second Opinion, I tapped the brains of two of the smartest D2C health investors I know: ACME’s Aike Ho and Canaan’s Byron Ling. Between them, they’ve backed brands including Curology, Tia, Papa, Kin, Uniform Teeth, Brightside and more." - Chrissy Farr