Renegade Partners – a Bay Area-based entrepreneurial company comprising veteran VC Renata Quintini and Rosen Winsk – is raising about $100 million in start-up funds in late 2019, a business media concept that has been around since the end of the business. This effort is interesting for several reasons, not because of the backgrounds of both Quintini and Winsock.
Quintini, a trained attorney, was an investment director of monetization at Stanford University before being hired by Felice Venture, after which he was intercepted by Lux Capital. Throughout these companies, he worked closely with several high-flight startups, including the autonomous driving company Cruise, Satellite Startup Planet, and clothing company Bonobos. Wincek, meanwhile, once tried to do a PhD at UC Berkeley, but instead dropped out of school with a bachelor’s degree in biophysics to pursue his MBA at Stanford.
From there it moved to Canaan as principal, and from there it moved to IVP, where it became a leading partner, investing in enterprise and customer firms including Glossier, Compass, Masterclass and Transferwise. This is not a new trend, successful VCs who become women by leaving established companies to make their own clothes. Just a few names to Mary Maker of Bond, Diana Grayson of Construction Capital and Beth Sidenberg of Westlake Village Bio Partners. Unlike some of its predecessors, however, Renegade is not limiting itself to playing a specific role in the universe.
It is not tied to any sector. It is not marketing itself as an entrepreneurial company at an early stage. What it is looking for is a fairly specific mix of traction, team and market – a combination of what it is looking for in companies anywhere from their Series A to Series C levels. Cofounders say insurance giant John Hancock, a leading information scientist, is helping out. A chief public officer also with his own strong biography (Uber, Zoom, Milo); Principal Chloe Bryder, a former IVP investor who worked closely with Winsock; And, as Renegade’s “decision scientist,” Annie Duke, a former professional poker player and best-selling author.
