Lerer Hippeau

About

Lerer Hippeau is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in New York City in 2010 ¹. The firm was originally established as Lerer Ventures by Kenneth Lerer and his son Ben Lerer ². Eric Hippeau, the former CEO of The Huffington Post and previously a Managing Partner at SoftBank Capital, joined as a managing partner in 2011, and the firm was subsequently renamed Lerer Hippeau ². Kenneth Lerer is also known as the co-founder and chairman of The Huffington Post and the longtime chairman of BuzzFeed ³.

Since its founding, the firm has raised nine seed-stage funds and four Select funds that provide follow-on capital to top-performing portfolio companies from Series A through Series C ¹⁴. As of 2025, the firm manages approximately $1.4 billion in assets under management ⁵. Fund IX, closed in April 2025, raised $200 million for pre-seed and seed-stage investments, continuing the firm’s pattern of incrementally larger funds ⁵⁶. Prior funds include Fund VIII at $143 million (2022), Select Fund IV at $85.9 million (2022), Fund VI at $122 million (2018) with a companion $60 million Select Fund, and the original $28 million LHV Select fund in 2017 ⁴⁷⁸⁹.

The firm describes itself as “the most active early-stage venture capital fund in New York” ¹⁰. Approximately two-thirds of its portfolio companies are based in New York ¹⁰. The team is led by three managing partners — Ben Lerer, Eric Hippeau, and Graham Brown — supported by partners Andrea Hippeau, Isabelle Phelps, and Joe Medved ¹¹. Ben Lerer joined full-time in 2022 after selling Group Nine Media (which he founded and grew out of Thrillist) to Vox Media ⁴². Graham Brown joined from SoftBank in 2015 and was promoted to Managing Partner ¹².

The firm’s portfolio includes more than 400 enterprise and consumer businesses ¹, with 12 unicorns, 12 IPOs, and 159 acquisitions among its exits ¹³. Notable portfolio companies include Warby Parker (IPO), Allbirds (IPO), BuzzFeed (IPO), Casper, Axios (acquired), Mirror/lululemon Studio (acquired), Venmo, Glossier, Zipline, K Health, Guideline, ZenBusiness, and Blockdaemon ¹⁵.

Stated Thesis

Lerer Hippeau publicly describes itself as “singularly obsessed with finding founders before they’re famous” and committed to backing “good people with great ideas who aren’t afraid to do hard things” ¹. The firm positions itself as exclusively focused on leading pre-seed and seed rounds, investing “equally across the enterprise and consumer sectors” ¹¹⁴.

Eric Hippeau has stated the firm’s founding strategy in an interview with Crunchbase: “We decided on two things. One is that we wanted to be seed first investors. And then secondly, that we wanted to be New York first investors” ¹⁵. He has emphasized consistency: “It’s a good idea to have a point of view, and how are you going to differentiate yourself from others. But it’s really important that you stick to that, fund after fund” ¹⁵.

The firm describes its team as “former operators” who provide founders with practical support, stating that they give “founders more of what they need and less of what they don’t — and that means helping them develop the right habits from day 1 for long-term success” ¹. Ben Lerer has described the approach as “founder-centric” ¹⁶.

The firm also emphasizes its deep roots in the New York tech ecosystem. Graham Brown has stated: “We continue to see tremendous potential in New York and are just as excited about the ecosystem now as we were when we raised our first fund in 2010” ¹⁰.

Inferred Thesis

Based on analysis of the firm’s portfolio page and aggregator data (447 companies per Tracxn ¹³), Lerer Hippeau’s actual investment behavior reveals the following patterns:

Stage distribution: The firm has made 230 investments at the Seed stage (with an average round size of $3.01M), 106 at Series A ($6.49M average), and 16 at Series B ($20.5M average) ¹³. This confirms their stated seed focus: approximately 65% of investments are at the Seed stage (230 of ~352 stage-identified investments).

Sector distribution: While the firm claims to invest “equally” across enterprise and consumer, the portfolio data from Tracxn shows 252 consumer (B2C) companies versus 203 enterprise (B2B) companies out of 447 total ¹³. This suggests a slight consumer tilt (56% consumer vs. 45% enterprise, with overlap). The firm’s portfolio page organizes investments into categories including FinTech/DeFi/Blockchain, Commerce/D2C, Media & Entertainment, Healthcare & Wellness, Hardware & Robotics, Food & Beverage, Marketing Services, PropTech, and Supply Chain & Logistics ¹⁷.

Geographic concentration: Graham Brown has stated that approximately two-thirds of portfolio companies are based in New York ¹⁰. The firm has also expressed interest in Israeli founders, with Andrea Hippeau noting that the firm has “a natural pull toward and affinity for Israeli founders” and that of five Israeli companies backed, three became unicorns ¹⁸.

Check size: The firm typically writes checks between $300K and $2M as lead investor in seed rounds, with a target of roughly 50 investments per fund at an average initial check of $1M ¹⁰. The NYC Founder Guide lists the average check size as $500K–$2M ¹⁴. The firm aims for 10–15% ownership at the seed stage ¹⁵.

Investment pace: The firm makes approximately 20 investments per year ¹⁵.

Consumer brand strength: Despite the “equal” consumer-enterprise framing, the firm built its reputation on iconic D2C consumer brands — Warby Parker, Allbirds, Casper, Glossier, Birchbox, BaubleBar — that defined New York’s consumer tech wave in the 2010s ¹⁶¹⁷. Ben Lerer has acknowledged the evolution, noting that investments are now “split about evenly between consumer and enterprise” ¹⁶, suggesting the enterprise shift is a more recent development.

Co-investor patterns: The firm is part of the core NYC early-stage ecosystem alongside firms like First Round Capital, Torch Capital, and BoxGroup. Portfolio overlap with First Round is particularly notable given co-investments in Warby Parker and other early NYC consumer brands ¹⁹.

Notable gap: While the firm lists AI as a sector focus on some aggregator profiles, the portfolio page does not feature AI as a primary category. The firm appears to be investing in AI-enabled companies within its existing sector focuses (healthcare, enterprise) rather than pursuing AI as a standalone thesis.

Portfolio

Based on publicly available data from the firm’s website, Crunchbase, and press sources. This table represents a subset of the firm’s 447 reported investments ¹³.

This table represents approximately 6% of the firm’s 447 reported investments ¹³. Entries are ordered by investment year. Most years have been verified against Crunchbase, Tracxn, and press sources; remaining ~ entries could not be independently confirmed.

In Their Own Words

Eric Hippeau, on their founding strategy: “We decided on two things. One is that we wanted to be seed first investors. And then secondly, that we wanted to be New York first investors.” — Crunchbase Seed Series interview ¹⁵

Eric Hippeau, on consistency: “Consistency pays off… it’s a good idea to have a point of view, and how are you going to differentiate yourself from others. But it’s really important that you stick to that, fund after fund.” — Crunchbase Seed Series interview ¹⁵

Eric Hippeau, on what they look for: “It’s across the board in the sense that it’s all digital technology and it’s all cloud based digital technology… The second filter is that it’s got to be a product or an area that we understand.” — Crunchbase Seed Series interview ¹⁵

Eric Hippeau, on adding value: “If you’re going to make an investment, make sure that you can do what you can say you’re going to do and add value.” — Crunchbase Seed Series interview ¹⁵

Graham Brown, on investment criteria: “I tend to focus on answering three questions related to a startup’s thesis: 1) What’s the unique insight; 2) Is this the best team to execute on this insight; and 3) Is this insight tied to a market opportunity that is either sufficiently large or rapidly growing/evolving.” — AlleyWatch interview, February 2019 ¹⁰

Graham Brown, on check sizes: “We have made recent investments as small as $300K and as large as $2M, typically as the lead investor in a round.” — AlleyWatch interview, February 2019 ¹⁰

Ben Lerer, on their approach: “Our strategy is founder-centric.” — Fortune, December 2024 ¹⁶

Ben Lerer, on portfolio founders as LPs: “We love the fact that many of our founders invest in our funds because it’s one of the best data points we have to exemplify what this community means to the people who comprise it.” — Medium, Fund IX announcement ²³

Andrea Hippeau, on Israeli founders: “We have a natural pull toward and affinity for Israeli founders.” — Calcalist Tech interview ¹⁸

Andrea Hippeau, on founder traits: “Improvisation and agility will always remain major assets for tech businesses.” — Calcalist Tech interview ¹⁸

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Despite dedicated searches, publicly available quotes from portfolio founders specifically about their experience with Lerer Hippeau are scarce. The firm reports that dozens of portfolio founders have become LPs in subsequent funds ²³, which may serve as an indirect signal of founder satisfaction, but no direct quotes could be independently verified.

Sources