The field of enterprise technology has been particularly hot among investors recently, especially after a string of well-received public offerings.
A new venture capital firm in New York is aiming to get in on the action, with an investment thesis about the changing nature of the workplace. The firm, Bowery Capital, finished raising a $33 million fund on Wednesday.
Led by Mike Brown Jr., who previously co-founded AOL Ventures, the firm plans to invest in business-oriented start-ups with a marketing or technology focus. Mr. Brown contends that chief marketing officers and chief technology officers will increasingly turn to start-ups rather than incumbents.
“The future of the work force will be much more digitally native,†he said.
Mr. Brown, 29, has taken two colleagues from AOL Ventures, Keegan Forte and Nic Poulos, to join him on Bowery’s investment team.
He brought this idea to AOL early last year, Mr. Brown said, and then spent the subsequent months figuring out how to transition away and start his own shop. He will continue to manage certain investments for AOL, he said.
Bowery’s portfolio already includes several investments, which were inherited from Mr. Brown’s angel portfolio. Those include Codecademy, which offers online courses in coding.
News of the firm’s start was reported earlier by Fortune online.
Mr. Brown said he expected to spend a lot of time in San Francisco, though the firm is based in New York. And the name Bowery has a Manhattan history.
“The Bowery was generally known in historical times as the connection between downtown and the Five Points neighborhood with the uptown farmlands,†Mr. Brown said. “You have this element of the entrepreneur being the farmer, the cultivator, and the downtown centers being the money.â€
In addition, the name is a nod to the music scene of the ’70s and ’80s and the legendary club CBGB.
“It’s rock ‘n’ roll and cool,†Mr. Brown said.
