GoingVC was founded in 2016 to provide individuals a path into venture capital. Five years later, it continues to grow as a vibrant, collaborative, and inclusive community for emerging VCs. The group has graduated 8 cohorts and has over 330 members and alumni. GoingVC has also participated in deals with the world’s top VC funds and achieved meaningful exits, including its first unicorn in 2021.
With excitement around the growth at GoingVC, the executive team decided it was time to elevate the brand to match the vision. The founders, Arno Niazi and John Gannon, were looking for a brand design that was inspirational, modern, and professional. So, they formed a design team within GoingVC, and the first major goal of the rebranding project was to establish an Identity Kit. The team started by researching the goals, values, and customers at GoingVC, and used the data to inform design decisions of the project.
Next, a unique point of view was established to drive the design - VC’s need a community so we can all go further together. “All” represents the importance that GoingVC places on diversity and inclusion. “Go further” alludes to the positive impact and success of GoingVC’s venture ecosystem.
The mantra became “Go further together”, which inspired the metaphor of venture as a great expedition. This concept can now be seen reflected throughout the GoingVC brand, from the “ascending V” in the logo to the imagery on the website. This mantra is an expression of GoingVC’s past & present, and a manifestation of going further in the future.
The next major milestone became a new logo design. The team ran many design experiments and finally landed on a font, weight, and style that felt right for the new GoingVC wordmark. The type foundry Fontfabric calls Nexa "future perfect". The typeface designer, Svet Simov, said that he wanted to create a simple sans serif font based on a circle. The result is a clean and modern font with elegant lowercase g's. Simov also included italics in Nexa, and GoingVC's design team chose this style because it communicates the idea of momentum or "going".
Two small but important additions were made to truly make the logo unique to GoingVC. The v was altered to go up and to the right, and so called the Ascending V or the Hockey Stick V. However, the design still felt incomplete, and COO, Anthony Bellafiore, requested something more. So, a serif was added to the i, giving a human element to the logo, and thus Anthony's I.
To keep things simple, gvc was broken out from the wordmark to create a new, recognizable icon. This is how you will see the GoingVC brand represented on its profiles of social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.
The design team also worked together to find the perfect colors, fonts, and imagery to represent a modern and professional venture capital brand. They landed on a lively color palette and two variable fonts. Roboto Mono was chosen to add a technology aesthetic and Newsreader for a traditional touch and blog readability. These design assets make up GoingVC's new Style Guide, so internal and external stakeholders can more easily work with the GoingVC brand.
The final piece to complete the new brand launch was the goingvc.com website. The goal here was not to launch a perfect website, but to make a huge leap in the way that GoingVC presents itself to the world. From here, our team continues to iterate on its product and brand to serve emerging VCs, angel investors, and startup founders. We thank you for being a part of our diverse, comprehensive, & thriving venture ecosystem, and we look forward to going further together with you.
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