Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

What did Springbank Collective Founding Partner Courtney Leimkuhler learn raising SPVs?

13 Jul 2023 · 1 min

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In this interview excerpt, Springbank Collective founding partner Courtney Leimkuhler explains how she, her college friend Jen, and business‑school peer Alana decided to raise Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) as a way to test their investment thesis. The three women brought complementary expertise—Alana from government, Jen from consumer markets, and Courtney from academia—creating strong alignment around a shared thesis. Initially uncertain about the volume of company formation activity that fit their thesis, they chose not to seek external capital right away. Instead, they opted to write very small checks through SPVs to validate the market and build a track record before pursuing larger fundraising rounds.

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So you chose to set about raising SPVs. Can you walk us through that journey? Yeah. So I am really lucky. 2 other amazing women were thinking about the same sorts of things that I was at the same time. So one was my friend Jen, who I went to college with, and she introduced me to Alana, who I was sort of at business school around the same time with. And the 3 of us really had a lot of alignment around this particular thesis. Alana came from a government background. Jen had more of a consumer background, and I think we all saw the same thing. What we didn't see was maybe how much company formation activity there was within our thesis, right? So I think from an academic standpoint, it made a lot of sense. We were not yet convinced that there were enough things for us to invest in. And so we really started, instead of going and trying to raise a little bit of capital from outsiders, we said, what if we just write really small checks?