- Venture-capital firm Index Ventures launched a TikTok account in April 2021.
- The company wants to reach young founders and showcase its social-media savvy to current prospects.
- The effort is led by Index’s Molly Alter and Rex Woodbury who appear in and edit some of its videos.
Venture-capital firm Index Ventures has made a bunch of bets on the creator economy in recent years.
Its portfolio includes a variety of brands tailored to creators, such as
Patreon
, Creative Juice, Fanbase, and
Discord
. The firm even hosted its own creator summit in October.
But what happens when VCs become social-media creators themselves?
Two Index partners, Molly Alter and Rex Woodbury, took on the task last year, launching a TikTok account for the firm that has since garnered 39,000 followers.
The company uploads a mix of educational videos about the business world, promotional videos about its own brand or portfolio companies, and posts on other industry topics such as VC interview questions.
“When we think about getting in front of entrepreneurs early and meeting them where they’re at and focusing very much on the next generation, TikTok felt like an obvious choice,” Alter said.
Both Alter and Woodbury have appeared in and edited TikTok videos for Index’s account. The company also hires independent creators to make videos for its page.
Woodbury is a social-media influencer in his own right, with around 28,000 TikTok followers and a couple hundred thousand Instagram fans. Alter, who is newer to the creator world, said she decided to buy a ring light when Index launched its account.
“Once I did that, I was like, ‘Wow, I’m really down the rabbit hole,'” she said. “I learned how to do all the editing, and now I’ve got a whole setup and it doesn’t take as long as it used to take.”
The pair have found particular success making educational videos about retailers. One post from Woodbury on how Costco makes money drew nearly five million views and one million “likes.” Another from Alter on Trader Joes’ business model attracted half a million views and tens of thousands of “likes.”
The business case for a VC running a TikTok account
Outside of establishing its brand with Gen Z founders, Index also believes that being on TikTok shows that the company is in tune with current
marketing trends
.
“We definitely see a business case from attracting entrepreneurs and showing them what Index is all about,” Woodbury said. “At the same time, I think with companies that we’ve met that did not necessarily discover Index on TikTok, I think they’ve been struck that a venture capital firm is thinking about things like a TikTok strategy.”
TikTok isn’t short on content about business and investing. Videos with hashtags like “investing,” “investor,” and “entrepreneur” have earned billions of views on the app. But outside Index, few other VC firms have set up their own TikTok accounts.
One exception is Redpoint Ventures, a VC firm that began posting satirical content on TikTok last month. The company hired a content creator to be the face of its account, drawing in around 3,600 followers so far. Another notable investing account on TikTok is podcast creator Harry Stebbings’ 20VC Tok, which has added 45,000 followers by posting interviews with VCs and founders. Stebbings’ fund announced it raised $140 million last year to invest in seed and growth stage startups.
Index, for its part, does not have quantitative goals attached to its TikTok videos.
“We don’t really track specific metrics and we don’t even really care that much about the numbers on the app,” Alter said. “We really want to make sure that we’re just reaching an audience who’s interested either in becoming an investor, and demystifying that for them, or interested in starting a business.”
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