WC

William Crowder

Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Aperture VC; Adjunct Professor of Venture Capital, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $100,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $5,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $1,500,000.00

Work Experience

  • Co-Founder & Managing Partner

    2021

    Investing in the evolution of financial services. Supporting founders at the early stage of their journey to build category-defining companies. Current investments include: Anonybit, Azimuth, Freeing Returns, Goodfynd, and GreenLyne. Learn more at www.aperturevc.com and find us on X via @aperturevc

  • Adjunct Professor

    2024

    Teach a second-year course for MBA students interested in the venture capital profession. "Special Topics in Finance: VC Lab" is an experiential deep dive into the world of venture capital as a practitioner. Students learn to embracing risk in times of great uncertainty through a hands-on opportunity to evaluate and assess opportunities to invest in early stage companies currently raising capital.

2017 - 2021

  • VC In Residence

    2017 - 2021

    First VC in Residence for Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab, an accelerator program designed for seed stage companies with multicultural founders including women and people of color.

2012 - 2017

  • Lead Investor, Catalyst Fund

    2012 - 2017

    Built the Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, a $20M venture capital fund focused on investing in early stage tech companies led by diverse entrepreneurs. Invested in 50+ startups with aggregate enterprise value exceeding $5 billion including Squire, Flutterwave, EightSleep, and PartPic (acquired by Amazon).

2011 - 2016

  • Managing Director

    2011 - 2016

    Sourced and advised pre-seed founders building the next wave of game-changing companies. Dreamit-backed companies include SeatGeek, Octane Lending, and LevelUp (acquired by Grubub).

  • Founder and Managing Director

    2008 - 2011

    Strategic advisory and consulting firm serving the strategic and operational needs of growth-oriented companies. Client engagements included: Managing the planning, development, and launch of an online venture for a $350MM media company with radio, TV, and print holdings. Leading the post-merger integration of multiple media properties (3 companies, 150+ employees) with a publicly traded traditional media company (1,000+ employees).

2004 - 2009

  • Director Strategy Business Development

    2007 - 2009

    Transformed the post-merger operations of 4 online advertising businesses into a fully integrated digital $2B advertising entity. Served as chief of staff to and managed business unit performance and led strategic initiatives to achieve growth objectives.

  • Senior Manager, Operational Effectiveness Program

    2004 - 2007

    - Strategically wound down operations of AOL's worldwide customer support and call center operations. - Led cost reduction initiatives to offset subscriber revenue decline

2001 - 2002

  • Manager, Global Strategy

    2001 - 2002

    More strategy and M&A consulting. This time in the legal and regulatory space.

1999 - 2001

  • Associate

    1999 - 2001

    Strategy and M&A consulting. Advised on a wide range of financial services cases including the management buyout of a payments processor, pre-IPO preparation of a life insurance provider, and the creation of a venture-backed eCommerce roll-up.

1998 - 1998

  • Summer Associate

    1998 - 1998

    My introduction to the world of management consulting between Y1 and Y2 of business school.