Launching new venture capital firm – seek logo

NextView Ventures

NextView is a new venture capital firm which provides seed stage capital to entrepreneurs starting internet-enabled businesses. Every entrepreneur has a passionate idea about what’s next - we give them the funding and expertise to realize that vision. The firm empowers company founders to validate their concepts and create the next set of transformative companies. Our approach offers entrepreneurs the freedom to fully evaluate their funding options at the next stage of their company, maximizing flexibility on how they build it.

We are looking for a talented designer to help us design our corporate logo and brand identity now, and then assist us with future design needs as our marketing endeavors expand.

Our target audience is twofold.

Primarily, want to reach internet entrepreneurs who are ages 25-40. They are digital natives who have grown up immersed in technology and are starting companies to leverage that experience. Some are first-time entrepreneurs, while some are experienced having started and sold their previous companies.

We are a different type of venture firm and we want our logo to reflect that fact. We’re not stodgy VCs in suits who don’t get the internet or understand startups. Rather, we’ve previously been entrepreneurs ourselves and live our own lives embedded in a connected world.

Thus, we differentiate from our competition by:
1. Following an investment decision process which is clear, respectful, and timely.
2. Being entrepreneur-friendly in our approach – everything from philosophy to to detailed funding terms.
3. Providing hands-on advice and help in making our investments successful.

Our logo should reflect the energy and passion which we’re bringing to our endeavor.

That being said, our secondary target audience is our own investors. Therefore, our logo must strike a balance between conveying excitement/uniqueness to forward-thinking entrepreneurs and engendering trust and confidence in people who are providing our own capital. As we raise our own funds, we must instill assure institutional investors who are investing their money.

On a tactical level, we will be using this logo immediately for our business cards and website, but would like it to be extensible to other collateral. As such, I’d like to have both a full color version and a black & white one which could be used. The new logo should include a smaller version (which may have a variation from the larger) for use on social media or other online places where a smaller icon is appropriate.

While our full name is “NextView Ventures”, I’d like the name “NextView” to really stand out and the “Ventures” as a supporting word.

It is highly preferred that the logo isn’t just letters, but contains an additional mark or visual component. I’d like it to contain some subtle embedded imagery that evokes the name, but not a literal translation. (Merely an example, but perhaps some lines resembling a window to connote a “view” could be incorporated). I am very open to new ideas about what that imagery.

At least, I’d like to have a two-toned logo with a primary and a secondary color. If it works, perhaps a slightly used tertiary color could be added that fits into the palette. Please avoid yellow, purple, pink, neon or pastel colors.

As discussed above, the logo should strike a balance between modern, yet still have a solid strong feel that conveys confidence.

Print file format - .ai (CMYK)
Web file format - .jpg and layered .psd (RGB)