J.D. Vance was a VC—is a VC?
I hedge here because, candidly, Vance’s track record as a venture capitalist just doesn’t strike me as all that deep—there’s nothing wrong with it, to be sure. The tech resume for Donald Trump’s newly named running mate looks something like this: After a spell in corporate law, Vance went on to work at Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital, and then moved to Steve Case’s Revolution, before launching his own firm.
Vance’s time at Thiel’s Mithril Capital seems to have overlapped with a pivotal time in his life: In 2016, he published Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. The success of that book made Vance something of a brand name. And his gig at Revolution was connected to the firm’s Rise of the Rest fund, which was focused on investing in startups in the heartland.
His stint at Rise of the Rest was unremarkable, according to a 2021 Business Insider article, which says he was not especially versed in the intricacies of deal terms or diligence, and quotes one investor saying, “I don't recall anyone at Rise of the Rest bragging about something J.D. Vance brought to the fund.”
Still, after a couple of years, Vance launched his own fund, Narya Capital, and raised $93 million from big names like Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Eric Schmidt. (Narya, if you’re wondering, is another one of those J.R.R. Tolkien references.)
Narya’s been doing deals, as recently as this year. Per Crunchbase, Vance’s firm invested in real estate assessment software company ValueBase in June, and the firm has done 19 deals to date. Other Narya portfolio companies include aerospace startup True Anomaly, insurtech Branch, and farmland-focused real estate investing company AcreTrader.
I haven’t read Vance’s Hillbilly book (a terrible inconvenience for me today, I must say) but as I was writing this I felt it was time to start. So, huddled in my hotel room at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference, I bought the book on Kindle and started. (I probably wasn’t the only one doing that today.)
Even from the first few pages, I can already see how this book became a bestseller—and how it was this book that made Vance’s ascension from hanger-on VC to presidential running mate possible. The very first lines of Hillbilly Elegy read:
“My name is J.D. Vance, and I think I should start with a confession: I find the existence of the book you hold in your hands somewhat absurd. It says right there on the cover that it’s a memoir, but I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve accomplished nothing great in my life, certainly nothing that would justify a complete stranger paying money to read about it.”
He goes on to be clear that he’s “not a senator, a governor, or a former cabinet secretary.” Well, he’s now a senator, thanks in part to Thiel’s support. And, depending on what happens in November, he could be the second in line for the presidency of the United States.
So, the venture business may have a man in the White House, a potential turn of events that will likely be celebrated in the industry (including, perhaps unsurprisingly, by Elon Musk) regardless of Vance’s investing track record. And Vance, whatever happens in the elections, will have a nice postscript for Hillbilly Elegy.
Gee Wiz…Yesterday, I interviewed Wiz CEO and cofounder Assaf Rappaport and Thrive Capital’s Philip Clark at Fortune Brainstorm Tech, about a day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Alphabet is looking at acquiring Wiz for $23 billion. And believe me, I attempted to get Rappaport to talk about it. If the old saying is “the door is closed, try a window,” I tried many windows. But Rappaport and Clark did talk through how they’re thinking about…an exit. Read more here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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