Noah Breslow
Noah Breslow leads BCV’s platform team, which provides business-building support to BCV portfolio companies and designs the systems to run the firm. Noah brings experience as an engineer, early-stage entrepreneur and public company CEO to assist companies at all stages of the journey.
About
How long have you worked at Bain Capital Ventures?
I joined BCV in 2021 as an operator-in-residence after my company was acquired, and became a partner here in January 2022.
What is a “platform team” and why is it important for founders?
Great founders have a choice of which VC they partner with, and need much more than just capital to build their businesses. Investors do a ton of individual work and counsel for their portfolio companies, and a VC platform team complements that by providing systematic support with a dedicated team. For example, our Customer Development team helps our portfolio grow revenue through targeted introductions, portfolio showcases with large enterprise buyers, and large-scale demo days with hundreds of potential customers in attendance. Or, our Talent team can help an early-stage company build out its engineering team and recruiting process, or a later stage company find the perfect executive to help them scale.
Why would founders need the support of a platform team? Shouldn’t they know how to do this stuff already?
There is some debate about this! As someone who started as an engineer and product leader, and then became a CEO, I received a ton of help from our VC partners and their platform teams, especially where I didn’t have a lot of prior experience. Great founders aren’t necessarily great at everything when they launch their company, and that’s OK.
What do you love about working for Bain Capital Ventures?
Three Ps: the people, the perspective, and the portfolio. The partners and team at BCV are incredible and I learn a ton from them every day. Everyone is bright, driven, low ego, and high integrity. The perspective here is so unique; we are at a crossroads of so much startup activity across the domains we invest in, so every day brings a new area to learn about and explore. And working with our portfolio founders is very rewarding and energizing. either through one-on-one advising or of course via our BCV Platform team.
What are your interests and passions outside of BCV?
I love spending time with my wife and two children outside of work. As our kids get older, the family dinner table debates and discussions get better and better! On the weekends, I spend time outside hiking or skiing, or indoors playing video games with my kids or attempting to play musical instruments. During COVID, I got into gardening: like venture capital, you have to be patient, and there are a wide variety of outcomes!
What is a self-care ritual you practice?
When I wake up, I don't check my email until I have exercised, showered, and tracked down my first cup of coffee. And sleep. Getting a good night’s sleep is probably the best self-care you can do, and is essential to bringing the energy required to build companies over the long term.
Background
Insights
Portfolio
Reserv
Building the claims experience of the future using complex data ingestion and automated coverage decisioning.
Thoropass
Making compliance a way to win with fast certification and scalable security practices to ace any audit.
