From Founding GP to EIR: On Joining Eclipse
As of today, I’m pumped to join Eclipse Ventures as their very first entrepreneur-in-residence. Believe it or not, this marks the very first day of my life working for someone else! And I couldn’t feel better about the group of humans I’m fortunate to camp out with. After the wild year I’ve had, joining Eclipse feels like slipping on an trusty pair of shoes.
I first met Lior in 2013 when he was running Lab IX, helping Flextronics support small hardware startups, leveraging their giant pool of resources. Since that very first meeting, I’ve been continually impressed with his ability to push his (and, later, Eclipse’s) aspirations higher and higher. Eclipse thinks in a holistically different way than other venture firms, but they’ve stayed pretty quiet. This team has had their heads down. Building. And I respect that. Part of the reason I’m pitching my tent at Camp Eclipse is to help tell this story, so I’ll pause on details for now. Just know there’s big stuff happening over here.
And while I’m feeling really energized by the amazing things this team is building, I’m even more impressed by the people themselves, and the compassion they show for each other. After learning how important it is to be treated well when I needed it most, watching Lior and the rest of team step up to support their own partner when facing mortality made my concern for joining another venture firm melt away. Truly this is a group of people that are partners first and investors second.
What I’ll Be Doing Around Here
My core mission will always be the same: helping hardware companies get off the ground. So, if you’re a hardware company looking for advice and/or capital, shoot me a DM. Eclipse supports a wide variety of full-stack companies from Seed to Series B for both B2B and consumer companies.
In that light, I’m excited to bring some new perspective to early-stage consumer hardware investing around here. The market has definitely struggled to support these companies over the past few years, but I’m a deep believer there are still many more durable companies to be built. Part of that strategy is helping the exceptionally experienced Eclipse partners share their perspective with the world. We’ll also work on building new frameworks and tools to support this next generation of startups. To both existing and future Eclipse portfolio companies: I’m excited to work with you.
True to the EIR designation, I plan to get back to building hardware myself in the coming year or so. Speaking as a long-time builder myself: I’m thrilled to have the operators at Eclipse supporting me with what comes next.
