Quaestor: a better way for investors and companies to collaborate

Today, we announced that 8VC has led a $5.8M round of financing in Quaestor alongside our friends at Spark Capital, Abstract Ventures, Riot Ventures, Fathom Ventures, and GFC. We’re excited to tell the world more about Quaestor and its source of inspiration.

Building a startup is a thrilling experience. Entrepreneurs move quickly, make bold moves, and take huge leaps of faith about what the future should look like to disrupt industries and build successful startups. Silicon Valley’s unique approach to business has produced some of the greatest companies in the world. But too many startups fail to reach their full potential because of avoidable problems—poor communication and operational planning.

Especially in the early stages of companies, CEOs and boards communicate informally and often leave their responsibilities to each other unclear. CEOs have few tools at their disposal to collaborate with their investors, create internal plans, and share results. The result is ad hoc governance with little oversight during the formative period when a start up would benefit most from an active board’s guidance. The costs of ineffective management can be serious: frivolous spending, lagging growth, and vulnerability to fraud. Otherwise viable businesses vaporize capital and exhaust their runway. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

At 8VC, we take our responsibility to our portfolio companies seriously. We owe better management tools to our limited partners, founders, and the dedicated employees of our portfolio companies. With this mission in mind, Joe Lonsdale, Alex Moore, and the whole 8VC partnership came together to support co-founders John Melas-Kyriazi, Kevin Hsu, and Deny Khoung on their journey to solve this problem. Along with dozens of experienced CEOs and VC partners, the group began developing new collaboration tools, piloting them in our portfolio companies, and iterating on what reporting and communication frameworks should be the best practices at top tech startups in the 2020s.

Now, we’re excited to share our work with the entire community with the launch of Quaestor—a platform that seeks to democratize financial transparency between startups and investors, improve reporting and communication, and empower founders to make better decisions. Quaestor automates financial reporting and investor relations by dynamically combining systems of record with founder-oriented management tools.

Quaestor emphasizes metrics in company building. Investors are able to monitor their portfolio companies through customized KPIs while founders operate towards clear milestones and goals. Founders can use Quaestor to automatically produce reports, customize the level of transparency, and share information quickly and efficiently. CEOs, board members, and investors have easy access to timely, detailed, and verified information. The platform facilitates dialogue about financial well-being so that investors and board members can give actionable advice and provide valuable guidance to their portfolio companies. Quaestor fosters transparency, accountability, and trust among the investors and founders of a company.

Through Quaestor, we’re excited to partner with great CEOs and top VCs in our community to help startups grow, reduce costs, and continue doing what we all do best: disrupting the status quo. Come join us on our mission to build a more transparent and efficient innovation economy.