If the music stops, what startup gets a chair? Renegade Partners’ co-founders are finding out

Renegade Partners co-founders Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek have seen it all in their careers — notably over the past four years when they launched their first fund as the COVID pandemic took hold and navigated the economic roller coaster that followed. 

Now, with a second $128 million fund — and a plan to write checks of up to $10 million into 20 startups — Quintini and Wincek join TechCrunch editor Kirsten Korosec on Equity to discuss those early days of their first fund, what they look for in a startup and what’s driving the shift away from megafunds. 

Quintini and Wincek recalled the pressure cooker moment of their first fund. The VC firm closed that fund in March 2020 just days before shelter-in-place directives. 

“We would joke that we had to build a house in quicksand for a bit,” Quintini quipped. “But then the tech market started to rally towards the back end, things normalized. And then the bullishness came, and the pendulum swung the other way. 2021 is a whole different story.”

Regardless of the volatility, the pair haven’t changed their investing formula. It starts with pinpointing what the true value creators will be over time, the pair said. 

From there, Renegade opted to invest its first fund in cycles to take exposure away from market fluctuations, prioritized diversification and sought out what they described as “durable businesses.”

“If the music stops, what gets a chair?” Quintini asked and then answered, “Durable businesses in markets that matter.”

That strategy has continued with the second fund, Wincek noted. 

“Timing markets is impossible, right? So the only thing that you can do is be consistent,” Wincek said. She added they also look for where, in the market, are the exogenous shifts that are not going away. 

One recent shift that the pair noted on the podcast was a trend away from megafunds in favor of small- or medium-sized funds across the industry.

“Frankly, these platforms are looking less and less like venture firms and more and more like a BlackRock,” Wincek said. “And that’s fine. There was an opportunity to build that in the market.” Later Wincek added “savvy founders understand that there’s a very different product sold from a small, focused venture firm than from a large platform.”

Both have noticed a rise in these smaller funds driven by the best general partners at these large monolith platforms who want to do traditional venture and spin out and go on their own.

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