Seattle VC Profile: Andrew Dumont, Curious Capital

When I started Ascend in 2019, I realized even though I was o-l-d OLD, I had more in common with the folks in town who were earlier in their professional investing journeys than the venerable VC’s I’d pitched as a founder. I admire and respect the new wave of Seattle/Pacific Northwest venture capitalists, and thought it would be fun to profile some of our region’s up and coming VC talents in these pages. —KW

Andrew Dumont helped inspire me to launch Ascend. He’s a next-level operator, a founder-first investor at Curious Capital, and a no-BS wise counsel to many of us in the Seattle venture capital ecosystem. He’s the kind of friend you want in your corner, whether you’re a startup founder or a VC.

What made you decide to be a professional investor?

The main thing that made me want to become an investor and start Curious was my move back home (I grew up in Bellingham) to Seattle, after a stint in New York. At the time, I was dealing with some family health issues and had just finished the acquisition of Bitly after a bit of a slog, and was ready to spend as much time as possible helping and supporting local entrepreneurs. I have always felt like Seattle's seed/pre-seed ecosystem was lacking. Investing is a great vehicle to do that.

I have been around VC my entire career, both in growing venture funded companies and while at betaworks (one of the first venture studios, which also frequently did seed investments). I certainly don’t think of myself as a professional investor, though. At this stage of my career, I’d much rather be building companies, so investing has become a part-time activity for me. This also allows me to add real value as an investor by still very much being in the game as an operator.

What are your most successful investments so far?

Fund I has performed exceptionally well, far better than I thought it could honestly. Of the 18 companies I've invested in, 6 of them have been acquired, with 4 of those going to publicly traded companies. Some standouts in that group of companies were Streem (in Portland) that was acquired by Frontdoor, Timber (in New York) that was acquired by Datadog, and Vendorhawk (in Seattle) that was acquired by Servicenow.

But honestly, I don’t take any credit for these outcomes and am a firm believer that the ones that should be celebrated in successful outcomes are the entrepreneurs that build them. Seed and pre-seed investing is very much a gamble and there's a lot of luck involved. No exception here.

Why should founders want you on their cap table?

I have deep operational expertise in customer acquisition and growth. It’s somewhat of a rare skillset and something I've found to be a pain point for almost every early stage company. Both in terms of strategy of GTM and making the key growth hires. I offer this up to every company I invest in and am there to help every step of the way with it.

How many new pitches do you take per month?

The first few years of working on Curious, I was a lot more active and having anywhere from 20-30 conversations with entrepreneurs each month. I really don’t like the frame of most VC pitches, though, so I generally tell the entrepreneur to put away the deck and just talk me through their business, the challenges they see, and how I can help them. I generally decide whether or not to invest after that discussion.

How many new investments do you make per year?

Previously, it was 5-10 per year. I’ve since pulled that back to 1-5 per year. My intention in the short term is not to raise another fund, so I'm slowing down pace and mixing in more personal investments.

What’s your sweet spot in terms of check size, valuation and vertical?

My check size is anywhere from $25K-$100K. I generally don’t care about valuation at the stage I invest, which is typically pre-seed. On vertical, I’m willing to invest in anything as long as I can get passionate about the problem and team.

What one company do you want to hype for us here?

Tough to only pick one, but I’m a huge fan of Aaron and the team at Blokable. They’re tackling the massive problem of affordable housing. This is my only hardware investment and has been incredible to watch them go from a single Blok unit to a full-scale production.

What do you think the next ten years will look like for Seattle startups?

There’s better spokespeople for Seattle than me, but generally I think the future of Seattle is very bright from a talent perspective. There are great technologists moving here every day and more and more focus being put on the most strained spot of the ecosystem historically, which was access to capital for early stage founders. I’m optimistic.