April 2023
Case
HBS Case Collection

Drive Capital: A New Road for Venture

By: Paul A. Gompers and Alicia Dadlani

Format:Print
| Language:English
| Pages:28

Abstract

Founded by two former Sequoia Capital partners, Columbus-Ohio-based Drive Capital’s mission was to build a world-class venture capital firm in the middle of the U.S., an area historically overlooked by VCs. Drive faced early challenges of attracting investors, sourcing talent, and building entrepreneurial ecosystems, but by 2022, the firm had invested in over 90 portfolio companies and had assets under management of over $2 billion, making it the largest VC firm outside the coasts. In the Winter of 2022, cofounder and CEO Chris Olsen contemplated an investment into Forge Biologics, an Ohio-based gene therapy contract development and manufacturing company. The partnership weighed the pros and cons in the context of the fund’s overall portfolio and macroeconomic headwinds facing the industry.