Initialized Capital restructures, and lets multiple partners go

Initialized Capital is restructuring its team to “meet the moment” in the venture market, according to a blog post from the firm’s managing partner Brett Gibson.

The San Francisco-based venture capital firm, originally founded by Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, and Harjeet Taggar, announced yesterday that it let multiple people go and specifically named Jennifer Wolf, who had been with the firm since 2016 in various roles, including, most recently, as a managing partner.

Cyndi Reseburg, Intialized’s head of communications, declined to share how many people were let go and added that the company would not be commenting on any specific departures.

It appears that the firm also parted ways with Jenny Fleiss, the former co-founder of Rent the Runway, who just joined as a partner last fall. The firm declined to confirm Fleiss’s departure but she has been removed from the website. The SF Standard also reported that she is among those “exiting” Initialized.

While the firm won’t confirm the exact number of people let go, based on changes to the firm’s team page on their website from October 1 to today, it would appear that it slashed staff from 33 to 21 people, which represents a 36% reduction in headcount. Other jobs that appear to be impacted include Initialized’s head of admin, head of capital and partner solutions, and head of product.

The role of Parul Singh, appointed a partner at the firm in 2021, has been recast on the website from partner to board partner.

It’s not all downsizing. Amidst the departures, Initialized announced that it has promoted three principals — Abdul Ly, Andrew Sather, and Zoe Perret — to partners. Interestingly, Wolf previously worked at Adjacency, a company co-founded by Sather in the nineties.

Gibson’s memo said while the firm started out lean and behaved like a startup, over time it expanded as it found investing success. In the process it added “too many layers,” he wrote, which it is now looking to shed.

“It’s time to get back to basics,” reads his memo. “Now, more than ever, we need to follow the talent not only thematically, but also by adopting their practices. The faster the world moves, the faster we need to move.”

Initialized Capital is not the only firm that has restructured in the past few years to better align with current market conditions. Last fall, Greycroft let go of five investors when it was unable to reach its fundraising target. Sequoia cut a third of its talent team last year, too.

Initialized was founded in 2012. The firm focuses on seed deals across categories and has more than $3 billion in assets under management. Initialized has backed notable companies including Coinbase, Rippling, and Flexport, among others.

This piece has been updated to correct Wolf’s most recent position and the titles that were impacted by the restructuring.