CASE STUDYHow an impact fund built a lean and mean operations function to punch above its weight
THE CHALLENGE
Better Ventures is an Oakland-based venture firm founded in 2011. They lead pre-seed and seed rounds in science and technology companies shaping the future of food and health. Across four funds, the firm has backed 88 companies.
Managing Director and Founder Wes Selke came up through investment banking, so every financial question at the firm ran through him. In 2022, with the first close of Fund IV on the horizon, that workflow had officially stopped being time-efficient. Last-minute audit and tax deliverables collided, a dropped handoff between the fund administrator and the tax provider cascaded across every entity, and a missed state filing came back with stacked penalties attached. These are pains most GPs experience the hard way (and wish they could forget).
Selke had already tried solving it with headcount. One hire, however capable, couldn't cover the range of a fund's back office needs or flex up enough when work spiked. He engaged Strut’s operations service line to fill the gap.
I have a finance and accounting background, so the buck stopped with me on everything related to our finances, bookkeeping, audit, and tax. Those are all important, but they distracted me from the most important thing a VC should do: fundraising, deal sourcing, and portfolio support. To scale a firm requires top-tier operations. Without that, you’ll remain just a fund.
Wes Selke,
Managing Director & Founder
How We Helped
Took ownership of the annual audit and tax cycle, coordinating the fund administrator and tax provider directly.
Built a federal, state, and local compliance calendar, surfacing an unmet local tax obligation and ending the penalties.
Set review and escalation standards with the fund administrator, correcting errors, recovering stalled reimbursements, and pushing for a more experienced account team.
Absorbed payables and reconciliations, reviewing invoices before release.
Advised on compensation, severance, equity, carried interest, and leave using market comparables, and administered a parental leave filing end to end.
Opened a full operations bench rather than a single point of contact, pulling in specialists as questions came up.
Transitioned into ongoing operational leadership through the launch of new vehicles.
Within the first year, the first-quarter crunch stopped being a crisis. Filings went out on time, the penalties ended, and the audit and tax cycle closed without Selke in the middle of it. About a month in, he started to feel his blood pressure lower, knowing he could trust Strut to have it under control.
The fund administrator relationship changed too. Errors were caught before they compounded, reimbursements that had never come through were recovered, and Strut pushed the fund administrator on Better Ventures' behalf until the account was staffed with the strongest team to serve what the firm actually needed. The fund administrator started delivering what Better Ventures was already paying for.
Selke's spring vacation, interrupted for years by urgent tax questions, became a vacation again.
Four years in, the relationship has widened past the original scope. Better Ventures draws on Strut's market read for compensation and policy benchmarking, and on a bench of specialists rather than one person's expertise.
The result is an operating function that gives a lean team the filings discipline, market intelligence, and specialist depth of a much larger firm, without a much larger firm's payroll.
Strut is a partner that is direct, takes ownership, and finds a solution. They bring an institutionalization layer to our firm and enable us to punch above our weight. If you had a fractional person and it was just an individual, you're limited to that one person. With Strut, you're getting a whole team.
— Wes Selke,
Managing Director & Founder