Mr. Hippeau. (Photo: David Yellen via Ad Age)

When we last spoke with Eric Hippeau, the Huffington Post mafioso was discussing Lerer Ventures' new $36 million fund. Today, the early-stage investment firm is announcing two new hires to help it manage and grow its considerable portfolio.

Max Stoller, a recent NYU graduate whose hackathon apps we've covered in the past, will be joining Lerer Ventures as an analyst. Mr. Stoller, a HackNY veteran, worked as an engineer at Hyperpublic--a company founded by LV managing director Jordan Cooper and sold to Groupon--as well as on the platform team at Foursquare, both while in school. And, yes, if that makes you  wonder, you probably did college wrong.

LV also brought on Nicola Korzenko as portfolio support manager before the holidays, coordinating help for LV's startups. Ms. Korzenko previously worked at Signpost, which is backed by Google Ventures and Spark Capital, and Creative Artists Agency.

"Max is someone that we’ve known for quite a while, and he’s well known in New York," Mr. Hippeau told Betabeat when we mentioned running into him at a hackathon or two. "His job is outreach into the marketplace to make sure that we know all the budding entrepreneurs, specifically the younger ones--that they know who we are, that we understand what people are doing," he added. Mr. Stoller will focus on the emerging entrepreneurs coming out of school or doing hackathons. "He knows the young people to know much better than we do," Mr. Hippeau added.

LV began investing the new fund in October and has made about eight different commitments thus far, Mr. Hippeau said. Not all of those are public, but the firm grabbed headlines last week when it participated in a $19.3 million Series D for BuzzFeed only a year after investing in BuzzFeed's $15.5 million Series C.

BuzzFeed reportedly expected to bring in $20 million in revenue last year. So was there any truth to the rumor that investors expect them to triple that in 2013? "Oh my God, no! I don’t think anybody expects it to triple," Mr. Hippeau said. "That would be pressure!" He wouldn't confirm the $20 million figure, but said investors do "expect them to be on a strong growth path, which they are."

Naturally, the path Mr. Hippeau was referring to is paved with that new media cure-all: social advertising. "As you know, [BuzzFeed has] always turned back any kind of monetization that relies on banner or traditional display. They had plenty of opportunities to sell a lot of that. Now they found a model which scales, which is attractive to large brands, and they’re just at the very beginning of trying to take advantage of that," he said.

Do BuzzFeed's sponsored stories count as "native advertising?" we asked. "I never quite understood the definition of native advertising," Mr. Hippeau admitted. But the reason social ads are extremely attractive to brand marketers, he explained, is because it mimics the same narrative opportunity they have in TV advertising. "The reason why there’s still a lot of advertising on television, even though the audience has moved on, is because it’s still one of the few mediums where advertisers can tell a story. They try to grab you emotionally, they try to make it funny. That’s not something you can do in display." Tumblr's revenue consultant Rick Webb recently drew a similar comparison between TV advertising that can still delight you and native ads.

And what about reports that investors are expecting BuzzFeed, which has raised a total of $46.3 million, to sell for at least $300 million, but ideally closer to $600 million? "I never put a price expectation on our companies. That sounds like a crazy analyst," Mr. Hippeau said. "Look, what you’re trying to do is build a scalable, reliable business, and if you can do that, which is tough, then when the time is right, when it’s time for the company to go public or be sold, then the right thing is going to get done. Then people understand the value that’s being built, and the fair value will be made at the time. What that value is, you can’t tell today."

Mr. Hippeau said LV opted to invest in BuzzFeed again so soon for a number of reasons. "It’s a combination of how excited we are about the company and how confident we are that the company is on the right path. And how confident that the last money we put in is going to get a VC-like return." Whether a "VC-like return" is closer to 5x or 10x, he didn't say.

The NowThis site (formerly called Planet Daily) currently pulls in newsy video clips from sites like Twitter, Facebook and--most typically--Buzzfeed, another Lerer Ventures portfolio company. The company's Twitter handle, @NowThisNews, is run by its social editor, Drake Martinet, who's also an adjunct professor at Stanford. Mr. Martinet said that 90 percent of the video content on the site is produced by the NowThis team.

"We're building a video news company, and today that means being native to the social web," Mr. Martinet told Betabeat by email. "We think of Twitter, Facebook and other social sites as our front page... thats where we want users to find and share our videos."

Last night, each time a state was called by one of the major news networks, NowThis tweeted a piece of ASCII art relating to that state. Seeing the graphics pop up on our Twitter feed every so often was a welcome break from typical political tweets--though not everyone enjoyed the flashback.

NowThis said it worked with noted Twitter ASCII artist Matthew Haggett, known on Twitter as "tw1tt3rart," to come up with the illustrations. "We wanted to try something ambitious and a little bit fun," they tweeted.

Check out some of our fav tweets in the slideshow.

Mr. Hippeau (Photo: Twitter)

Earlier today, Lerer Ventures revealed that the early stage investment firm--a powerful, active force in growing New York's startup ecosystem--has raised its biggest fund yet. While raw SEC filings first indicated that Lerer Ventures was raising $30 million, the deal closed at $36 million. That's more than $64 million combined in less than two years.

Partners Ken Lerer, Ben Lerer, Eric Hippeau, and Jordan Cooper have backed some of the most high-profile companies from New York's new class of tech startups, like Warby Parker, MakerBot, OnSwipe, and Birchbox. Lerer Ventures has also had a number of notable exits, like GroupMe (acquired by Skype), Mr. Cooper's startup HyperPublic (acquired by Groupon), and Venmo (acquired by Braintree). In fact, the Huffington Post mafiosos--Ken Lerer and Mr. Hippeau are both veterans--have been so busy building "the largest infrastructure in New York for entrepreneurs" that they apparently haven't had time to move Venmo into the "Exits" list on the firm's website.

Betabeat spoke to Mr. Hippeau this afternoon after his firm's new fund and why we're in "the golden age for entrepreneurs in New York."

About a year ago, when I spoke to Ben Lerer, he attributed LV’s success partly to being at the right place at the right time. How much do you think that has been a factor in your growth and your place in the ecosystem?
Our growth is a reflection of the growth of entrepreneurship and startups in New York. So in that sense, we are definitely at the right time because this is the golden age for entrepreneurs in New York. There’s a whole infrastructure to support entrepreneurs. We’re a big part of it, but by no means the only part of it.

We also have four partners who, combined, have a lot of experience on the operations side--operating media, tech, and communications companies--as well as a lot of experience in doing venture capital investments.

In May, 2011 when LV first announced an East Coast-West Coast partnership to syndicate deals with Ron Conway’s SV Angel Partners, it was a big sign of support for your firm. Now, you’re much more entrenched in the startup scene. Would the partnership be as vital to your success if it happened now?
I have personally known Ron for about 20 years. He’s a good friend of mine as well as someone with whom I’ve co-invested over the years. We’re based in New York. He and his fund are based in San Francisco, so we’re very complementary to each other. And when we make a co-investment in a company, we bring our joint network of support, so that’s very meaningful for the companies.

Now, we actually co-invest with pretty much everybody in the marketplace. We are very collaborative and an investment is always a syndicate of people who come together to help a company.

Which other New York firms are in your syndicate?
All the very active investors in New York, such as First Round, RRE, Softbank, Thrive, High Line, Betaworks--just to name a few--are all funds and people that we have repeatedly done investments with.

Recently, LV named Stephen Colvin, the former CEO of Newsweek/Daily Beast as an executive-in-residence. Between that and Ken Lerer’s NowThisNews, is this a sign of LV’s focus on content startups?
We are interested in content, but by no means do we do content mainly. When we invest in New York, we invest in sectors that New York is good at. So there’s consumer, commerce, mobile, social, ad technology, publishing technology. There’s actually a lot of B2B, software-as-a-service type businesses, marketplaces. Having Stephen join the team is more of a reflection that we want to continually add resources to support our portfolio companies.

Andreessen Horowitz, for example, says they use the old-school CAA model in terms of how they structure resource to help portfolio companies. Do you have a model for the way you try to build an infrastructure for your portfolio or do you build as the need arises?
We do have a model. Obviously we don’t have the resources that Andreessen Horowitz has. [Laughs]

Who does?!
Yeah! But we do have an extensive network of support. We have not only our own colleagues, we have a group of analysts and a principal who are helping out full-time with the companies, but we have this extended network of people who are in our ecosystem that are advisors, or people we’ve worked with in the past, or people like Stephen Colvin that we can rely on for very specific tasks. We have a very big focus on making sure that we are constantly doing things that move our companies forward.

Considering LV’s rise, is there any downside to having really good deal flow?
[Laughs] I guess the only downside is that it can be sometimes a little bit overwhelming, but we do have a good system in place to make sure that we identify companies that are really promising. I actually think it’s a real asset!

Have you noticed one area of weakness among New York companies or something LV’s portfolio companies need help with--monetization strategies or partnerships with larger companies?
The common denominator with New York companies is that they’re constantly looking for qualified new employees. I can’t tell you how many open jobs we have within our portfolio, but it’s definitely in the hundreds, if not thousands. So identifying and recruiting and bringing good employees, particularly on the technology side, is one of the biggest challenges. But the companies always find ways. Some of the employees that they hire don’t necesaarily have to be in New York, given that a lot of the companies tend to be virtual.

There's a perception that New York's startup scene is very open and accessible. But as things matures, the tendency is to get more stratified. How easy is it for a company to get a meeting with you?
We haven’t found any real difference in the past few years. New York tends to be very collaborative. Everybody is literally working together. Of course it’s competitive like any ecosystem, but it’s not, perhaps, as intensively competitive as it is on the West Coast. The players are well-identified. The players tend to be very constant and consistent. There’s really no other way of saying that this is as collaborative an ecosystem as you could possibly imagine.

In terms of where you’re allocating the fund, besides sectors like content or commerce, is there another factor you look for in potential investments?
Sure. We’re looking for teams that have big ideas whose time has come. The factors that matter to us are: Is it a big idea? Is the timing for this idea right? And is this the right team--are these the right people--to be doing this? Clearly the trends are mobile, social--on the B2B side, the use of consumer Internet technology for the workplace. We’re starting to see more and more marketplaces that are developing. All the things that you would expect New York to be good at because New York is the fashion, media, finance, commerce capital of the United States. So all of these industries--and plus whatever else you can imagine--are being transformed and disrupted by technology and this is where we want to be.

Can you give an example of a company that you’ve invested in that represents “a big idea whose time has come”?
I don’t think I would do it justice because we have 135 companies. So, I would rather not!

Formerly of. (Photo: FontShop

Newsweek Daily Beast CEO Stephen Colvin has decamped from his publishing bastion to take a gig as executive-in-residence at Lerer Ventures. As VC titles go it's one of the less well-defined, but an announcement from the firm offered a little detail, saying that Mr. Colvin will offer "strategic input" to the tech startups in the Lerer Ventures' stable.

Hey, we can think of one startup in particular that might be able to use Mr. Colvin's know-how--NowThis News, the viral video network currently being cooked up downtown.

Lerer Ventures' Eric Hippeau said in a statement:

“Stephen is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of growing and operating media brands. As executive-in-residence, Stephen will be working directly with some of our portfolio companies, from organizational structure and positioning to sales and revenue strategies, as well as helping us evaluate new investment opportunities.”

Mr. Colvin added that, “I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and working with them."

Jordan Cooper, left, and Ben Lerer (Photo: via The Pitch)

Roughly a year-and-a-half after closing its second $25 million seed stage fund, Lerer Ventures is in the processing of raising money for a third. An SEC filing, first noted by TechCrunch, says the size of the round is $30 million.

Although the Form D indicates that the early-stage venture capital firm has yet to sell, expect the round to close quickly.

Last May, it only took Lerer Ventures "a matter of weeks" to raise that $25 million from individuals and family offices. And that was before the highly-regarded New York City firm--launched by Huffington Post cofounder (and Betaworks and Buzzfeed chairman) Ken Lerer and his son Ben Lerer, cofounder of Thrillist--boasted a handful of exits. 

Indeed, Lerer Ventures, whose team also includes partners Jordan Cooper and Eric Hippeau as well as advisors Jonah Peretti and  Christopher Poole, aka Moot, has been humming along since last August when portfolio company GroupMe*, a group messaging service, was acquired by Skype for $41 million.

In February, Groupon purchased Mr. Cooper's startup Hyperpublic-- an open database of location-based info on people, places, and things--which was funded by Lerer Ventures. This March, AOL purchased the photo sharing app Hipster. In July, Airbnb acqui-hired DailyBooth, the startup that lets you share webcam photos. And last month, Venmo, the mobile payments startup, was acquired by Braintree for $26.2 million.

Thrive Capital*, helmed by Josh Kushner, also recently a new $150 million fund after a number of exits, including GroupMe.

SEC regulations prohibit discussing private placements while fundraising is still in progress, but we will update you when we know more. In the meantime, please enjoy the odd couple stylings of Mr. Lerer and Mr. Cooper, courtesy of Betabeat's 2011 web series, The Pitch.

The Pitch, Episode 1 from Spinks on Vimeo.

*Disclosure

Mr. Lerer (lererventures.com)

Planet Daily, the new video startup announced a few weeks ago by ex-HuffPo execs Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau, has raised $5 million from undisclosed investors, according to a Form D filed today with the SEC.

Planet Daily, which will reportedly launch this summer in time for the presidential elections, is a video news startup targeted at the Jon Stewart set. The service is a joint venture with Bedrocket Media, another startup that Mr. Lerer has invested in. Planet Daily has been touted as a "CNN killer," but they should probably set their sights a little higher, because who still watches CNN anyway?

We've reached out to the team at Lerer Ventures for more information on this, but word has it that they have a CEO summit today, so we haven't heard back yet. We'll update as soon as we know more.

Mr. Lerer (via lererventures.com)

Huffington Post cofounder Ken Lerer is apparently at work on a stealthy startup aimed to "attract a generation of Web natives who watch Jon Stewart but not CNN or Fox News," reports Peter Kafka at AllThingsD. Internet locals who love Jon Stewart and loathe cable news . . . wait, is he talking about Betabeat??

The startup is so stealth it doesn't even have a name yet, although it's already hiring. The service will function as a joint venture between Lerer Ventures, Mr. Lerer's seed stage VC firm, and Bedrocket Media Ventures, the video studio and incubator he cofounded shortly after selling HuffPo to AOL for a cool $315 million.

According to Mr.Kafka, Mr. Lerer is "telling potential investors and employees" that he will have an active role in the new project, along with Eric Hippeau, the former HuffPo CEO who joined Lerer Ventures as a venture partner last February, and Bedrocket's Brian Bedol. Although we hear Mr. Lerer is "definitely not" pitching investors.

"The service, which will launch this summer in advance of the U.S. presidential elections, will use a mix of livestreaming video and taped reports, and a mix of professionally produced segments along with contributions from amateurs.

While Bedrocket has landed four YouTube “channel” deals for its programming, the new venture won’t be confined to any particular platform. Lerer and company have been promoting the idea that the service will rely heavily on social media like Facebook and Twitter for distribution."

Going out where the people are (on social media), rather than asking them to add another site to their mix and visit your platform? That does sound native! Now if only these "relatively unknown reporters, not established/expensive TV folks" the startup plans on hiring for on-camera work could be as funny as Mr. Stewart.

Mike Maples of Floodgate

At the Bloomberg Empowered Entrepreneur conference, talk of seed stage slaughter was in the air.

"A lot of seed stage startups are going to die," said Jeff Clavier. "An enormous amount were funded over the last two years, and the money is not there now to support them in the next round."

Lerer ventures Eric Hippeau said the IPO window, which seems to have recently snapped shut, makes it difficult to gauge their returns. "Facebook is worth 80 billion on the private markets, but we don't know how that will hold up during the IPO."

Mike Maples of FLOODGATE said venture investors have to change with the times. "The potential permanent change of the last ten years is the micro-fund matched to the realities of democratized innovation. The capital markets will have to adapt to that. "

The angel investor won't die off, even if many lose big on the current crop of startups. "You need to test an idea to see if its worthy," said Mr. Hippeau.

"I want to help people build meaningful companies. I'm not a good fit for someone who says, photo sharing is broken and I want to build and app to fix that," said Mr. Maples. "Don't tell me what product you have, show me your engineering team, not your rinky dink little product."

Mr. Maples said he loves to go all in when the outlook is bleak. "We gritted our teeth and backed Chegg when they were close to bankrupt and the chips were down. That's a great feeling."

image via bloomberg

While Lerer Ventures is not yet two years old, its new partner, Eric Hippeau, has been close to Silicon Valley super-angel Ron Conway for more than two decades.

So it was a natural fit for the two funds to syndicate their deals and leverage their networks on the east and west coast. "We are really strong on the tech in the Valley and Lerer is terrific in the media and advertising worlds of New York," says SV Angel's David Lee.

The idea is that the two firms will get a first look at the deals that the other is getting into, with the investment being at the discretion of the entrepreneur. While veterans like Hippeau and Ken Lerer have built a great network, youngsters like Ben Lerer and Jordan Cooper run with the start-up crowd.

The deal mirrors an earlier partnership SV Angel established with Russian investor Yuri Milner. "Our companies will now have access to a much bigger web of connections when it comes to business development," says Lee.

Conway and Hippeau are thick as thieves, said one local VC, but Conway's comments at TechCrunch Disrupt that "New York tech is here to stay" struck many as condescending. "We've been here for twenty years building real businesses, so nice of you to notice."

Today Lerer Ventures announced their second round, which at $25 million is roughly three times the size of their inaugural raise. Eric Hippeau, who announced he was coming to Lerer the same week AOL bought HuffPo, will be in charge of the fund.