Joan Heidorn

Joan Conniff Heidorn is a co-founder and Managing Director of Spur Capital Partners, a venture capital fund-of-funds platform founded in 2001. Spur’s legacy business focused on investing in early-stage venture capital funds, especially managers investing in technology and life sciences. In March 2026, Bow River Capital announced an agreement to acquire Spur Capital Partners, and Bow River later announced that its acquired venture capital platform had been integrated into the firm.

Since Spur’s formation in 2001, Heidorn served on the firm’s Board of Directors, Management Committee and Investment Committee. Her Spur bio says she sourced and managed venture capital relationships and helped raise seven successive funds of funds for institutional investors.

Before Spur, Heidorn was Chief Operating Officer at Knightsbridge Advisers from 1994 through 2001, where she also served on the investment committee with the other future Spur co-founders. Earlier in her career, she was Group Controller for a subsidiary of Hartmann & Braun, worked with a group of venture-backed medical device companies, and was a Certified Public Accountant with McGladrey LLP, now RSM.

Heidorn holds a BS and MA in Accounting, with the MA focused on taxation, from Florida Atlantic University. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst. Public profile materials place her in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where Spur’s legacy office was located.

• Spur’s historical model was fund-of-funds investing: backing venture capital partnerships rather than usually writing direct seed checks into startups.
• Bow River’s current venture platform lists technology and life science as its core industries, Seed/Series A as its stage focus, and 90% U.S. / 10% international as its geographic allocation.
• Bow River’s stated venture view is that “access to strong investors, early ownership and portfolio construction are critical.”
• The strategy emphasizes access to top-tier and constrained venture managers, vintage and sector diversification, secondary underwriting, and identifying the next generation of venture capital talent.
• Spur’s LinkedIn profile describes the legacy firm as a venture fund of funds focused on early-stage managers in the U.S., with limited partners including foundations, endowments, families and institutional investors in the U.S. and Europe.
• Massinvestor reports that Spur typically invested $10 million to $15 million in individual venture partnerships.