Dawit Heck

Dawit Heck invests in application software and commerce technologies with a focus on data and analytics applications. Dawit partners with entrepreneurs with disruptive business models who are increasing the rate of change.

Associate

New York

About Dawit

What is the first company you invested in?

I did my first investment alongside Partner Scott Friend in Cogsy, which offers an inventory optimization tool for direct-to-consumer merchants. Working with the CEO, Adii, has been a terrific experience as he embodies what we look for in founders—tremendous founder-market fit, product vision, thought leader, and a real sense of collaboration. Since investing in Cogsy’s seed, we have spent lots of time with Adii brainstorming the best GTM strategies and product capabilities, as well as assisting with introductions to help the company executive on its vision.

What do you love about working for Bain Capital Ventures?

The people! Learning through osmosis from our senior leadership, our portfolio companies, and the rest of the team has not only helped build my own investment acumen, but also helped me realize what to look for in a founding team. I’ve also learned how to collaborate and contribute to our firm’s end goals of truly partnering with founders to help them create value for their employees, customers, and partners.

Do you have an investment ethos?

Attentive is a perfect example of a company that fits my investment ethos, which is to invest in the very best founders building the most useful and innovative tools. As part of BCV’s commerce tech team, we strive to back technologies that provide clear value to the end consumer, that are easy to implement and integrate with, and can work for customers of all sizes, helping them grow both top-line and bottom-line revenues over time.

What is compelling about your domain?

As we all know, the pandemic accelerated the path to a digital world. E-commerce has grown substantially over the last two years, as have the number of merchants that exist to provide consumers with a myriad of products and solutions. As a B2B commerce and marketing investor, I’ve seen how these trends have created a whole host of companies that help merchants more efficiently and effectively grow into powerhouse brands. It’s very exciting to see such a huge, cataclysmic transformation taking place in the commerce space

What advice would you give your younger self?

Be patient!

What is a self-care ritual you practice?

Exercise. I think everyone needs 1 hour in the day to decompress, no matter what that is. For me, taking my mind off the day to day and “zoning out” helps me reset and feel motivated to tackle every task throughout the day. Oh, and also making my bed every morning.

Background

4 years

2 years

1 year

2 years

Insights

The Next Generation Of Inventory Management: Our Seed Investment In Cogsy

by Scott Friend and Dawit Heck, Bain Capital Ventures We’ve all had that terrible feeling of clicking on a product, hesitating to buy it, and then going back the next day (or even just a few hours later!) only to realize the color and size you wanted is out of stock. Every year, retailers and brands leave billions of […]

Dawit Heck 4 min read

News Commerce Seed