Opportunity Manifesto Portfolio Team Summit

Backing the builders of tomorrow's companies

Vault Fund invests in company-building firms that systematically create new companies — maximizing upside through a repeatable, risk-managed playbook.

The Opportunity

A differentiated edge in private markets

Company-building firms span private equity and venture capital — including venture studios, roll-up platforms, and serial entrepreneurs. Their repeatable playbooks create structural advantages that drive faster, higher returns.

Repeatable build process
Efficiencies from a tested, systematic playbook reduce friction at every stage.
Rigorous early testing
Ideas are stress-tested before significant capital is deployed.
Capital efficient ownership
Lower cost basis from day zero reduces entry risk significantly.
Minimized downside
Concentrated portfolio construction limits capital loss exposure.
Reduced fee exposure
Structural alignment lowers total fee drag versus traditional alternatives.
Shared services advantage
Portfolio companies benefit from centralized resources and emerging talent networks.
Manifesto

A champion of visionary founders

01
We empower founders to have a greater impact. Through building rigorously tested solutions to today's challenges, we help visionary leaders shape the world around them.
02
We believe talent comes in all shapes and sizes — regardless of race, gender, age, or origin. The best ideas don't come from one place.
03
Company builders create a step change to traditional private market investing. We're not afraid to buck the trend to seek better returns — because we know the strength of a repeatable playbook.
04
The best time to invest is on Day Zero. Instead of following the money, we become the money. We seek great ideas today to create the major companies of tomorrow.
05
We believe the company building model can help solve humanity's biggest problems. That conviction drives every investment decision we make.
Portfolio

Ground zero for tomorrow's game changers

Team
Sarah Anderson
Sarah Anderson
Founding Partner

Sarah has over 12 years of private equity and banking experience and has been investing in early-stage ventures for more than eight years. Prior to founding Vault Fund, Sarah was the Fund Manager at The Cintrifuse Syndicate Fund — a strategic fund of funds with more than $100M in AUM, investing in early-stage venture capital funds across the United States.

Cintrifuse Syndicate Fund investors include P&G, Kroger, Great American Financial, Smuckers, Western Southern, along with other large corporations. The Fund invests primarily to give its member corporations access to innovation. Sarah's Cintrifuse investments included Atlas, Atomic, Greycroft, Lerer, Upfront, Madrona, and Revolution Ventures.

Prior to her role at Cintrifuse, Sarah worked with early-stage venture funds and technology companies as Vice President at JP Morgan in San Francisco, and as an investment banker at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC).

Sarah earned her Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida, where she was a pole vaulter on the Women's Track and Field team, and her MBA from UCLA's Anderson School of Management.

Francisco Gomez
Francisco Gomez
Partner

Francisco is a Partner at Vault Fund, focused on pipeline development, diligence, and regularly working with our underlying portfolio of company creation funds.

Prior to joining Vault Fund, Francisco was a Director at Allocate, a digital platform for private alternatives, where he worked closely with fund managers across the different stages of venture. Francisco and Sarah also worked together at Cintrifuse, where he focused on early-stage venture. During his time as an allocator, he has met with 400+ funds across the country and led diligence on 40+ investments.

In prior roles, Francisco worked in Finance at Fifth Third Bank and Schneider Electric where he covered Corporate Treasury and FP&A.

Francisco earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance and a minor in Spanish Language and Culture from Miami University.

Summit

How Formation Funds Benefit Investors in Frothy Markets

In 2021 over $621 billion went to start-ups, and there were 959 “unicorns” – companies valued at more than $1 billion – around the globe with an average of 2 new unicorns joining the herd daily. Yet we are starting to see some white caps forming on these frothy valuations, indicating that waves are going to crest and come down as valuations are softening and listings are pulled. We are in for an adjustment. 

We believe formation funds and venture studios are well poised to weather market cycles for multiple reasons: 

Mitigated downside risk: 

Venture studios and formation funds create companies internally from idea. They are investing at inception when the company has zero valuation. Any valuation above that in an up or down market is accretive. In down markets, therefore, even a flat round or a down round (that is not a pay-to-play) will still hold the gains from the initial studio investment.

Controlling terms: 

As founders of these new companies, they tend to have more control over pricing and the terms of future rounds. While this is not always the case, most studios tend to be the largest owners in the companies they create outside of the founders they recruit to lead. Therefore, they are better positioned to select follow-on investors based on favorable terms and valuations. 

Flight to quality: 

Startups in their later stages must weather a down market through balance sheet cash and expense reduction while continuing to meet their targets. For startups who run out of cash, the situation can be dire, and this is where we see down rounds and “wash-outs.” In these cases, the entire cap table can get reconstructed, and investors who are not participating in the round get converted to common, and typically a meaningless amount of common. 

Market contractions create a flight-to-quality for participating capital, where the best companies can survive and even thrive with new rounds of funding. The studio development process utilizes rigorous stress testing at the beginning of development, which ensures only the best ideas get turned into companies. 

In down markets, all capital is vulnerable; however, studios tend to be more insulated due to investing at inception, influence in downstream rounds, and developing higher quality portfolios. They are not as exposed to outsized later stage valuations and are able to realize gains from $0. 

1919 14th Street, Suite 700, Boulder, CO 80302

CONTACT US