Last year two venture capital firms, General Catalyst and CRV, launched a program called the Velocity Network to get their startups in front of Fortune 500 executives in New York City. Today they announced that Mayfield has joined as the third VC firm in the network.
New York is home to financial, insurance, security, retail, media, and other Fortune 500 companies — the very types of industries that young companies would like to talk to. But it’s a challenge for an enterprise startup with a handful of customers to get the attention of executives at top companies.
Molly Gillis, a principal at General Catalyst said that the companies launched the network last year at the behest of the startups. “The idea was catalyzed by our portfolio company founders who expressed a strong desire for a platform that provided access to NY-based customers,” she said. The two companies came together to form the network as a way to differentiate themselves from the rest of the VC pack and provide additional value to the enterprise companies under their purview.
Mayfield has a similar program going on in Silicon Valley called the CXO Network, which gives their portfolio companies the opportunity to talk to local executives about their products and services. Navin Chaddha, a partner at Mayfield says they saw joining Velocity as a way expand the idea to give their portfolio companies more access to east coast decision makers
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