In/Visible Ventures: An Investment Syndicate for Makers, Artists, and Thinkers

In/Visible Talks 2019. Photo by Kait Miller Photography. All images courtesy of photograph subjects.

In/Visible Ventures’s mission is clear: to build a community that empowers makers, artists, and thinkers to invest in other makers, artists, and thinkers. It acts on design moving closer and closer to the center of organizational value over the past 20 years. And it moves designers from being the people who provide a service to folks to the ones shaping the destiny of these companies. 

In/Visible Ventures taps into the community Arianna Orland and Dava Guthmiller built around their In/Visible Talks design conference that has welcomed thousands of people from all over the world. This summer, Orland, Guthmiller, and their third partner, Rick Johanson—Design Strategist at Google—launched an In/Visible Ventures syndicate.

The appeal—and the competitive advantage—is that the syndicate is composed of cross functional makers who are experts in their crafts. These people can provide knowledge and lessons learned as well as a check. In/Visible Ventures looks for companies and problems where design can make a profound impact in the areas of sustainability, accessibility, education and fintech, as well as creator tools. Early investments include Cent.co (an energy-conscious NFT platform) and Whisper.ai (building a new generation of hearing aids).

Here, Orland, Guthmiller, and Johanson discuss how In/Visible Ventures can help creators realize more of the value they create for companies, how it captures the collective smarts of the design community, and where (and why) they’ve made early investments.

“We aim to have a syndicate of cross functional makers who are experts in their crafts, shipped products at scale, and have experience solving complex user-facing problems.”

Rick Johanson

There are plenty of VCs out there, as well as ventures like Designer Fund and creative capital studio FKTRY. What makes In/Visible Ventures unique?

Rick Johanson: Over the last 10 years, we've observed a noticeable lack of design presence in venture capital and clear investment literacy gap within the creative community. Our thesis was that designers were not putting chips on the table to responsibly invest in their future. As design has moved closer and closer to the center of organizational value with the success of Airbnb and other companies with design culture at it's roots, designers now have much more influence, are becoming founders, and have much more access to capital. We also saw the trend that founders still may not have fully understood why design was important, but they absolutely acknowledged that design is important. That's a win. There’s an opportunity space there.

Arianna Orland: As folks on the receiving end of scopes of services, we also see the ramifications of ​​addressing brand, UX, and UI at later stages of a company's development. The approach to tech used to be to find product market fit—it didn’t matter what the thing looked like. By the time a company has reached certain developmental milestones, and operations have become more expensive and complicated, it can be a tough spot for designers navigate and push work through if it's pitted against product and engineering priorities. Not to mention the importance from an end user's perspective. We are all spending more time than ever online and audiences have become more sophisticated and attuned to the subtleties of what good design can deliver. Good design has the power to telegraph trust, bring joy, solve problems and convey the values of a company and what makes them unique.

As practitioners who provide design services, we know there's a huge benefit in making a right-sized investment in design from the beginning.

Dava Guthmiller: In/Visible is community supporting community and sharing process, challenge, and inspiration. Designers are higher up in the food chain and creatives and makers do have equity and they can invest. They are just risk-averse because they're not used to it. So having the syndicate allows these smaller opportunities on an individual basis, but then collectively we're still making an impact, which is related to how Invisible works.

“Good design has the power to telegraph trust, bring joy, solve problems, and convey the values of a company and what makes them unique.”

Arianna Orland

Whether warranted or not, I feel so many creators have this visceral reaction to working with most VCs. 

Dava Guthmiller: We come at this in such a different way. It is about opening up your process, so that collectively we can get better as makers and creators. That connection resonated for me as a small business owner. It democratizes how people can support each other and the opportunities that arise for you to get into the game, have more impact, and support those other brands and creatives who are at the leadership position that you believe in.

Rick Johanson: We aim to have a syndicate of cross functional practitioners—designers, product managers, engineers, anyone that's built user-facing products. A syndicated investment of a community with this experience is validating and represents a lot of confidence from a network of people that are adept at solving complex problems. This has landed well with founders as they then have access to this curated pool of advisors that will have a vested interest in the success of their company. This goes both ways.

How does someone join the syndicate? 

Rick Johanson: While there is no cost to join as an LP, you must go through the accreditation process to invest with us. Once you back us on AngelList, you have access to future investment opportunities we list. Another way to work with us is to help advise a company in our portfolio or generate leads to companies for future investments. We are working on an incentive plan for LPs that help support our growth as well.

Our north star is to raise a micro fund where we invest in seed stage emerging growth companies on our LPs behalf. First, we must build our brand, trust, credibility in this space, and and most of all, a successful track record. Until then, our LPs choose whatever deal we list they’d like to invest in directly.

“We come at this in such a different way. It is about opening up your process, so that collectively we can get better as makers and creators.”

Dava Guthmiller

Who have you invested in so far?

Arianna Orland: One is Adventure.IO founded by Devon Harris. He and I met years ago through Sarah Kunst and is the very first start-up I advised. The company focuses on bringing the interactivity of the internet to the medium of video. The insight was that video has been this static experience, and yet statistically it is a huge part of how people experience digital products and services. It’s a cool piece of technology. 

Rick Johanson: There’s also ARTERNAL. We crossed paths with them and saw an immediate fit. They’re modernizing how the contemporary art industry works and transacts. It is quite complicated, unregulated, and analog. The founder Sean Green is incredibly charismatic, but also an engineer master problem solver. There are so many operational issues that happen behind the scenes that no one really knows about, especially within the transactional relationship between the gallery, the collectors, and the artists and making it secure, private, and easily trackable. We see an ecosystem forming around art and tech.

Arianna Orland: It is about connecting, which I think is the DNA of Invisible/Talks. We have all these connections, but we're not benefiting from the network effect of these connections in ways that we think can bring a lot of beautiful experiences, open doors, and break down barriers to access. There’s a lot of potential for knitting these together, which gets exciting for us as we grow our portfolio.

How has your mindset around business evolved throughout your career? 

Arianna Orland: As a creative professional I spent a lot of time, almost actively, avoiding the conversation about business because I thought it was unappealing. I thought it was exploitive. And then I realized that that's the conversation that dictates the opportunities. If I'm not in those conversations and in those rooms, especially as I've grown in my career, then I cannot create the space for the kinds of partnerships, collaborations, investments, and innovations I want to see happen.

Dava, As a founder and owner, can you share an important business lesson you’ve learned, especially when creativity is at the center of the products/services?

Dava Guthmiller: Creatives inherently do not want to talk about money. They also don’t like to be bound by time and, when given the chance, will work on a project forever to get it right. One of the biggest lessons I learned was the power I gained by tracking and understanding both the time something takes and the value we provide. I can’t run a business if I can’t pay the bills and keep the talent. Undervaluing and underestimating put undue pressure on both the creative teams and the business relationships with the client. Having this insight from project to project, learning from it and setting expectations up front keeps everyone happy and the business running. 

What is a lesson you’ve learned so far while building InVisible/Ventures?

Arianna Orland: Design is such an umbrella term, much like being a doctor, where there's a ton of specialty and that nuance is lost by folks who are not practitioners or who are not educated in this specialization.

It’s a learning about how much we're able to teach, educate and help the folks who we're working with to make better, stronger choices about where to invest to get the most value out of creative support that is right-sized for where they are as a company. 

Seeing our expertise have an impact on all things design, everything from roadmaps to staffing to UX to brand, is very gratifying.

Dava Guthmiller: When designers can collaborate with research, customer service and customers, finance and the other parts of a business, the insights for crafting a solution are always stronger. From brand strategy to product design, we can all use more time to listen, empathize, and collaborate so our work can really make change and improve the experience of that brand or product.

If you’d like to read more from The Creative Factor, check out Morten Bonde’s story about working as a LEGO Art Director while losing his sight and how the first family of micro-mobility is redesigning the city car in Switzerland.