Trevor Kienzle

Trevor Kienzle is Managing Director & Co-Founder of Correlation Ventures, a data-driven venture capital firm built around rapid, low-friction co-investing. Correlation says it uses a large proprietary database of U.S. venture financings and outcomes to support quick investment decisions, and the firm currently reports more than $360 million in assets under management, investing out of Correlation II, a $200 million fund.

Kienzle has been a venture capitalist for 29 years. Before co-founding Correlation Ventures, he was a Managing Director at Newbury Ventures, where he led investments in MetaLINCS, acquired by Seagate, and Onaro, acquired by NetApp.

Earlier, he began his venture career at GE Equity, where he co-led the Software Group. His GE Equity investments included Okena, acquired by Cisco; Secureworks, acquired by Dell; RSA Security, later acquired by EMC; and Netscreen, which went public and was later acquired by Juniper.

Before venture capital, Kienzle co-founded LoansUSA, an experience Correlation says gave him firsthand exposure to the difficulty of raising startup capital. He holds an undergraduate degree with distinction from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Harvard.

• Correlation’s model is built for fast, objective co-investing: the firm says it created “the most rapid, reliable, and helpful co-investor in the industry.”
• The firm considers U.S.-headquartered private companies across nearly all industries and stages, but requires at least one other institutional VC to be making its first investment into the company.
• Correlation is usually best suited to fill out a VC-led round, especially when founders need to close quickly, avoid duplicative diligence, or add a helpful institutional investor without board-seat or ownership friction.
• The firm does not require minimum ownership and does not take board or board-observer seats.
• Its decision process uses a data model covering team, sector, financials, financing terms, syndicate composition, board, and other factors.
• Correlation asks for existing materials such as an investor deck, term sheet, capitalization table, financials, and financing legal documents; it explicitly tells founders not to create documents solely for Correlation.