Innovation Endeavors

The investment committee is led by Co-Founder and Managing Partner Dror Berman, alongside Managing Partner Rick Scanlon and Partners Scott Brady and Harpinder Singh. Eric Schmidt serves as Co-Founder and Chairman, providing strategic oversight and network leverage but not day-to-day investment execution. Decisions are made by the partnership group collectively, with individual partners leading deal sourcing within their domain expertise.

The firm operates a proprietary network called Supernode — a curated group of several hundred senior engineers and product leaders at major technology companies. These operators surface early signals on emerging technologies, conduct technical diligence, and provide warm introductions to founders who are still in stealth or academic labs. This engineer-centric sourcing model is designed to find deals before they reach broader venture markets, particularly in fields like applied AI, synthetic biology, and computational health.

Innovation Endeavors is a standalone private equity firm with its own LPs and governance, not part of Eric Schmidt's personal wealth structure. Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic entity funding science and technology research, while Hillspire is Schmidt's single-family office managing his personal capital. The three entities operate independently, though Schmidt's network and expertise inform all of them. Direct overlap in portfolio companies or investment decisions is minimal and governed by standard LP/GP conflict protocols.

The firm almost exclusively executes direct investments into operating companies, leading or co-leading Seed through Series B rounds. There is no fund-of-funds program and no disclosed strategy for acquiring LP stakes in other venture firms. On occasion, the firm may participate in SPVs for follow-on rounds alongside co-investors, but the strategy is overwhelmingly concentrated on direct primary equity in technical startups.

Innovation Endeavors co-invests regularly and views syndication as normal, particularly in later-stage rounds where capital requirements exceed a single fund's capacity. The firm has co-invested alongside funds such as Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and General Catalyst, among others. It does not operate a formal co-investment vehicle for LPs — co-investment in this context refers to co-lead or syndicated rounds with peer venture firms.

The firm focuses on early-stage companies, primarily Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds. Initial check sizes range from $2 million to $15 million, with reserves allocated for follow-on investments in later stages up to $50 million or more. The strategy is concentrated — the firm makes roughly 8 to 12 new commitments per fund vintage, aiming for high ownership and deep engagement rather than portfolio breadth.

The firm has explicitly stated it avoids consumer internet, social media, advertising technology, and crypto or blockchain-native plays — areas where network effects or marketing spend are the primary competitive moats. The thesis is built around hard engineering and scientific risk, so asset-light aggregator models and trend-driven consumer apps sit outside the stated investment mandate.