Tom Sperry |
Co-founder and managing director, Rogue Venture Partners
1. Why did you launch Rogue Venture Partners, and what type of startups does it focus on? I started Rogue over 10 years ago with the thesis of investing in great entrepreneurs in under-capitalized regions. I believed … if I put together a fund that only looked at opportunities in tier-two and tier-three cities, we could get early access to great companies and CEOs, as well as be a driver for economic growth because these companies could blossom and not have to move.
2. After launching Rogue in Portland, Ore., what prompted you to move to Rhode Island? How will this move influence Rogue’s work? I grew up in Connecticut and summered in Jamestown, so Rhode Island was my second home growing up. My wife and I made the decision to move to Jamestown to raise our family. Rogue now has offices in Portland, Austin, Texas, and Rhode Island. We look at deals all over the country, but our thesis of looking at deals in smaller, under-capitalized cities remains the same.
3. How many ventures has Rogue funded in Rhode Island? Is Rogue working with other partners in the state? We invested in Pointz – Waze for micromobility – and they now are in the Roux Institute Techstars Accelerator, which is amazing. We are investing in Five!, whose CEO lives in Rhode Island with a distributed team, and Megh Computing, whose founder is an ex-Intel executive and a University of Rhode Island graduate but is now in Portland. We are close partners with RIHub and others and are happy to share deal flow with everyone.
4. Do you see local funding sources as a gap in Rhode Island’s innovation ecosystem, and if so, how do you hope Rogue will influence this gap? We believe Rhode Island needs a local venture capital fund that is focused on writing the first checks into startups. We want to partner with everyone, as we feel Rhode Island’s ecosystem is still so nascent that it’s critical we work together to drive success for all in the public and private sector.
5. What does Rogue’s partnership with URI entail? We are lucky to count the University of Rhode Island Research Foundation as [a limited partner] in our current fund. We now also focus on nurturing and encouraging students and faculty at URI, and at all universities in Rhode Island, to enable their entrepreneurial journey and growth. The relationship has blossomed to include teaching courses in entrepreneurship and innovation, business pitch events with funding opportunities, and mentoring URI students one-on-one to create businesses.
