Inspired Capital closes $450M fourth fund as New York pushes back on Silicon Valley’s gravitational pull

To be clear, Inspired is not squarely focused on New York. Its portfolio is split roughly 45% East Coast, 45% West Coast and 10% elsewhere. That balance reflects the way that startups grow, she says. “A company that’s getting quite big in Silicon Valley often wants and needs a second talent footprint, and New York becomes really important,” she says.

Of course, for others, New York is the only choice. On that front, von Tobel says she has been pitched by at least 10 founders in recent weeks who selected New York specifically to avoid hiring job-hopping employees who have little allegiance to any one company, as is often the case in San Francisco.

Von Tobel definitely doesn’t dismiss the Valley. She says that someone from her team is on the ground in the Bay Area every week, and that she’s in the area routinely, too. “We have to pay extreme attention to both ,” she says.

As for strategy, she describes a firm that picks themes early and avoids the herd as much as possible. While many companies chase AI applications, for example, Inspired has backed physical AI and quantum computing startups, she says. Inspired came upon the creator-commerce platform ShopMy by following that thesis.

Where Inspired isn’t so different is in its penchant for backing serial entrepreneurs. Von Tobel says roughly a third of the firm’s portfolio is by repeat founders.

Asked about her stance on secondaries, she says Inspired will sell “a few chips” once companies reach multi-billion-dollar valuations, but it tends to keep more than 90% of its ownership, mostly using secondaries to add to positions in breakaway portfolio companies. That said, Inspired will lead later primary rounds if it misses an early one, and it has written checks for companies that are already valued above $100 million, according to von Tobel.

Von Tobel, who launched her online financial learning platform LearnVest on the TechCrunch 50 stage in 2009 and sold the company six years later to Northwestern Mutual for a reported $375 million, insists that Inspired’s strongest edge is patience and its ability to combine the best of both coasts.

“We bring West Coast ambition with East Coast financial discipline,” she says.