# Advantage Early Growth

Advantage Early Growth is an Asset Manager based in New York, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Asset Manager
- **Headquarters:** New York, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** New York, NY, United States
- **Founded:** 2009
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** advantageearlygrowth.com
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/advantage-early-growth

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Advantage Early Growth was founded in 2009 by Daniel L. Schultz, who saw early that the venture market had a structural gap: promising companies with modest revenue were too large for angels and too small for traditional venture firms. The firm designed a portfolio of revenue-based financing instruments and structured equity to address that trough. By the mid-2010s, this approach was being adopted widely; the firm had already built a track record of exits and follow-on financings across enterprise software and SaaS companies. The firm writes initial checks ranging from $1 million to $10 million, targeting profitable or near-profitable companies with recurring revenue models. It operates across enterprise software, cybersecurity, AI/ML, and digital health. Beyond pure capital, the firm often structures repayments to scale with revenue outcomes, reducing dilution for founding teams. Portfolio companies have included Gremlin, a chaos engineering platform later acquired by a public enterprise, and Narrative Science, the natural language generation company acquired by Salesforce in 2021, 2021). The team works bi-coastally from New York and San Francisco. Advantage Early Growth operates with a lean, partner-led team led by Schultz. The firm does not publicly disclose total assets under management or aggregate deployment figures. In April 2024, the firm participated in a $10 million structured growth financing round for RapidSOS, the emergency-response data platform — a deal that typifies the firm's ongoing focus on revenue-positive, later-stage venture deals with near-term liquidity paths. The firm's structural differentiator is its capital instrument — it avoided the equity-only model during a decade where that was orthodox. By blending debt and equity features in growth-stage companies before institutional investors arrive, it created a distinct liquidity profile and lower-correlation return stream that sits outside standard venture benchmarks. This positions it less as a venture fund and more as a specialty finance shop operating inside the venture ecosystem.

## Sectors

- Enterprise Software
- AI/ML
- Cybersecurity
- Digital Health

## Offices

- San Francisco, CA, United States

## People

- Daniel L. Schultz — Founder & Managing Partner

## Questions

### What investment instrument does Advantage Early Growth primarily use?

The firm is known for revenue-based financing and structured equity rather than standard preferred equity rounds. This allows it to provide non-dilutive or minimally dilutive capital to companies with existing recurring revenue, with repayments tied to future revenue performance.

### How does Advantage Early Growth source its deals?

The firm sources through its extensive network of angel investors, venture debt providers, and repeat founder relationships. Given its niche — companies generating several million in revenue but not yet at traditional Series A scale — it often sees deals that are overlooked by both early-stage institutional funds and larger growth-equity investors.

### Does Advantage Early Growth lead rounds?

It can lead or participate. Its typical check range of $1 million to $10 million allows it to anchor a pre-Series A round or act as a structured-finance participant in a larger syndicate alongside venture equity providers.

### What is the firm's relationship to Daniel Schultz's earlier investment activities?

Daniel L. Schultz previously co-founded a venture capital firm before launching Advantage Early Growth in 2009. The new firm was purpose-built around the structural gap he observed: companies too large for angels but unable to attract institutional Series A capital efficiently.

### What is the firm's exit profile?

Since many of its positions incorporate a current-pay or deferred-pay component, the firm realizes returns through both ongoing revenue-linked payments and final liquidity events. Known exits include Narrative Science, acquired by Salesforce in 2021.

## Related profiles

- [Alpha Adriatic](https://altss.com/profile/alpha-adriatic-ventures)
- [Adventure Funds](https://altss.com/profile/adventure-funds)

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Last updated: 2026-08-10T20:11:24.188Z

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