2023 at True: Our Year in Review

This year was a big year of change, as well as growth and opportunity. So much of what we saw in 2023 was driven by the power and ingenuity of the human spirit. Among tremendous change in the global environment, True Founders and their teams adjusted rapidly amid changing circumstances to continue to grow and create – and did so with compassion and humanity. 

Our community came together this year in ways we’ve not seen before. Amid constant challenge, True Founders supported each other, provided both guidance and inspiration, and helped each other lead through uncertain times. So much of an entrepreneur’s journey is ambiguous and uncertain. This year, the constants were ingenuity, flexibility, and teamwork. 

As an ecosystem, we all excitedly discovered the ways artificial intelligence can boost everything from coding efficiency and image and video generation to increasing the quality of all of our own writing skills, like what’s possible with Lex, the AI writing tool we funded this year. 

We continued to see robotic automation empower human workers with greater efficiency as well as safety measures. Ati Motors, maker of autonomous robotic systems for warehouses and manufacturing, comes to mind as the team paints a picture of what automation can look like at its best. 

Our True Climate Action Guide gave early stage founders a clear idea of where to start in decarbonizing their companies and operations in the earliest stages; translating scientific jargon into actions business operators can take today. 

We continued to follow our curiosities in web3, investing in companies amplifying scientific research, empowering musicians to earn more on their own and connect directly with fans, and building needed infrastructure for the decentralized world. 

And we hosted our 17th annual True Founder Camp in Deer Valley, Utah. Nearly 200 of us gathered among aspen trees and cool mountain air to have conversations among founder peers who really ‘get it’ and want to help one another through the ups and downs of the founder journey. 

We launched over a dozen new sector- and discipline-focused groups for both founders and their teams on our community platform, True Connect. Bringing together over 1,000 employees from across our portfolio companies, True Connect gives founders and their teams alike a space to foster deeper connection and knowledge sharing, hammering home our ethos that “the answer is in the room.” 

Last but not least, True grew to include five new team members, all of whom already seem like long-time friends. On that note, we bring you our 2023 year-end infographic highlighting those and many other headlines from our year together. 

We deeply thank our founder community, the many team members from across our portfolio who share their insights and friendship with one another, all of our limited partners, and friends of the firm who empower and encourage us every day.