GV's youngest partner has launched her own firm

Terri Burns, a former partner at GV, is venturing into a new chapter of her career by launching her own venture firm called Type Capital. 

The company will focus on early-stage startups, cutting pre-seed and seed-sized checks, reports Fortune. Burns told Fortune she is still in the beginning stages of building out her firm and hasn’t invested in any companies yet. She confirmed to TechCrunch that her new firm has launched but declined to offer more details on her plans or the size of the fund.

The launch of Type Capital is a significant milestone, as it marks Terri Burns’ entry into the select group of Black women who have their own venture firms. Black women who have co-founded or solo-founded their own firms include Jewel Burks Solomon from Collab Capital, Sarah Kunst from Cleo Capital, and Monique Woodard from Cake Ventures. 

This achievement further underscores Burns’ remarkable journey in the venture industry, which began when she joined GV in 2017. In 2020, at the age of 26, she made history as the firm’s youngest and first-ever Black female partner. 

Burns started her career at Twitter as an associate product manager before becoming a Kauffman Fellow and studying computer science at NYU. In 2021, she became the youngest member of the university’s board of trustees. 

During her tenure at GV, Terri Burns played a pivotal role in many of the firm’s successful investments. Notably, she led the investment into the social app HAGS, which was later acquired by Snapchat. Her involvement in the popular Partiful, which has since raised over $20 million from investors, including a16z, further solidified her as a savvy consumer tastemaker. She’s an angel investor and also co-founded an angel investment collective that has invested in at least 11 companies, including Clubhouse. 

Burns is interested in Gen Z founders, digital consumer companies, developer tools, and, of course, artificial intelligence. Like many seed-stage firms, she wants to be the first check in. Too often, she said, investors follow the hype train, missing out on good deals as they wait for signals from other investors that a company is worthwhile. She hopes to find promising founders and use her considerable network to help them find follow-on opportunities, she told Fortune.