Jason Mendelson

Jason Mendelson is a co-founder and Founding Partner Emeritus of Foundry Group, the Boulder, Colorado-based venture capital firm he established in 2007 alongside Brad Feld, Seth Levine, and Ryan McIntyre. Over a career spanning more than two decades in venture capital and technology, Mendelson has held roles as a software engineer, corporate attorney, venture investor, and startup founder. He began his career as a software engineer at Accenture, then became an attorney at Cooley LLP, where he specialized in corporate and securities law with an emphasis on representing emerging technology companies in financings, mergers, and acquisitions -- consummating over $2 billion in venture capital investments and $5 billion in M&A transactions during his legal career.

Before co-founding Foundry Group, Mendelson served as Managing Director and General Counsel at Mobius Venture Capital, where he was one of the first full-time, in-house general counsels at a venture capital firm. In this capacity he co-chaired the National Venture Capital Association's (NVCA) General Counsel group and was a key draftsperson for the NVCA Model Document Task Force, which created the industry's first set of standardized venture capital financing documents. He also co-founded SRS Acquiom, which has grown into the largest M&A closing platform in the United States, completing over $500 billion in merger transactions as escrow agents, payments administrators, shareholder representatives, and insurers.

Mendelson holds a B.A. in Economics (with distinction) and a J.D. (cum laude) from the University of Michigan. He co-authored the best-selling book *Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist* (now in its 4th edition) with Brad Feld, and the pair also created a free, seven-week online course on the same subject through Techstars. Since retiring from active VC investing in 2020, Mendelson has focused on music -- performing and recording as singer-songwriter Jace Allen -- and on criminal justice reform advocacy, including work with Colorado's reentry ecosystem. He also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado Law School, where he co-teaches a course on venture capital and entrepreneurship.

Foundry Group takes a thematic, horizontal approach to investing rather than targeting traditional vertical sectors. The firm's investment themes are typically based on an underlying protocol, standard, or market trend believed to be on the cusp of widespread adoption. Historical themes have included Protocol (SMTP, RSS, XML), Human-Computer Interaction, Distribution, Glue (infrastructure that connects internet services), Adhesive, Digital Life, Implicit Web, and Marketplace dynamics. The firm invests primarily in seed and early-stage information technology companies across the United States and Canada, with select participation in growth-stage rounds. Mendelson has emphasized that "the founder is everything, especially at the earliest stages," advocating that investors should back great people building in directions they believe in. His legal and operational background has given him a distinctive lens on deal structuring, governance, and founder-investor alignment -- themes that permeate his writing and investing philosophy.