In the beginning of the NYC startup ecosystem, there was David Tisch.
Yes, he is the grandson of that Tisch family, the one that built Loews Corp. (No. 237) and is worth an estimated $10+ billion.
But coming from privilege, which Tisch openly talks about, only gets you so far.
As he once told me for a profile I wrote on fellow NYC startup investor Joshua Kushner, “You get a little bit of money and a little bit of access if you are given it. You get a lot of money and a lot of access if you earn it.”
The same can be said of Tisch, who has shown a clear track record of picking startup winners over the last 15 years, first as the founding partner of startup accelerator Techstars NYC, where he backed ClassPass, and then as the founder of early-stage investor BoxGroup. When I first met Tisch circa 2010, he had put early money into GroupMe and Warby Parker. More recently, he’s backed decacorn fintech companies Plaid and Stripe.
Now, he’s got a monster return from Cursor as the first money behind the AI coding startup that SpaceX just acquired for $60 billion. BoxGroup wrote CEO Michael Truell his first $750,000 check, which will net an estimated $1 billion return, Fortune learned.
Tisch’s approach to spotting outlier talent boils down to accurately sizing up the grit of each founder he and his partners encounter, even if their initial business ideas aren’t quite on target—as Tisch said was the case with Truell’s when he first cut the check. And in the venture industry, which has supersized itself to more closely resemble PE firms by raising billions in AUM, Tisch’s small check, small firm approach is an outlier too.
In some ways, that makes Tisch one of the last true venture capitalists. Or as he prefers to be called, “internet investors.” He finds exceptional talent, bets on them early, and tries not to get too much in the way (BoxGroup does not take board seats in its portfolio companies).
“I’ve always loved the beginning and only the beginning,” Tisch told Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle. “The middle and the end are someone else’s problem.”
Check out Allie’s story on how Tisch found Cursor and his startup investing strategy, here.
Follow Alyson on X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and the Titans and Disruptors vodcast.
