Online Event
Venture Trailblazers Featuring Mac Conwell
Exclusive insights from the trailblazers shaping the future of startups and venture capital.
Date
Nov 12, 2026
Time
08:00 am - 09:00 am
Address
Online Event
Venture Trailblazers is an exclusive event series that connects leading investors, founders, and ecosystem leaders from across the globe to discuss the latest trends in startups and venture capital. For this edition, we are honored to welcome McKeever “Mac” Conwell II, Founder and Managing Partner of RareBreed Ventures and one of the leading voices for pre-seed investing outside the major tech hubs. The goal of Venture Trailblazers is to educate and connect founders, leaders, mentors, and investors across the global Founder Institute, VC Lab, and FI Venture Networks.
Mac Conwell joins Adeo Ressi for the next edition of Venture Trailblazers.
McKeever “Mac” Conwell II is the Founder and Managing Partner of RareBreed Ventures, a Baltimore-based pre-seed and seed fund that backs exceptional founders outside of Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Mac raised RareBreed’s $10 million Fund I largely on Twitter. He took more than 1,100 meetings in his first 90 days and over 4,000 across 18 months, and brought in 194 LPs, many of them first-time fund investors writing checks as small as $10,000. RareBreed has since backed 47 companies across more than 30 verticals, 17 states, and 4 countries, including Blank Beauty, Rebundle, and Red Drop. Although the firm has no diversity mandate, 70% of those companies have an underrepresented founder. His thesis is simple: invest in dope founders. In practice, that means software companies with a clearly repeatable customer acquisition strategy, and physical products in legacy industries that haven’t seen innovation in a decade or more. Mac is now raising Fund II with plans to double his average check to around $350,000, and his long-term goal is for RareBreed to become this generation’s First Round Capital.
Mac grew up in Baltimore, the son of an Air Force veteran. He studied computer science at Morgan State University, where he earned a top-secret clearance through a National Security Agency student program, then left school to build software as a Department of Defense contractor. He is a two-time founder: his first startup, a crowdfunding platform, sold its IP to a division of a Fortune 100 company, and his second failed. He moved into venture in 2016 at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), where he became the first person of color on its investment team. There he led the creation of the Builder Fund, the first state-backed pre-seed fund in the country for women and minority founders, which Maryland went on to fund permanently. Mac is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 26) and a recurring investor on The Pitch podcast. He has also written for TechCrunch, and in 2025 he testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets on opening venture funds to more investors. Known to nearly 100,000 followers on X as “Mac the VC,” he’s as likely to meet his next founder at a cookout as at a conference.
McKeever “Mac” Conwell II is the Founder and Managing Partner of RareBreed Ventures, a Baltimore-based pre-seed and seed fund that backs exceptional founders outside of Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Mac raised RareBreed’s $10 million Fund I largely on Twitter. He took more than 1,100 meetings in his first 90 days and over 4,000 across 18 months, and brought in 194 LPs, many of them first-time fund investors writing checks as small as $10,000. RareBreed has since backed 47 companies across more than 30 verticals, 17 states, and 4 countries, including Blank Beauty, Rebundle, and Red Drop. Although the firm has no diversity mandate, 70% of those companies have an underrepresented founder. His thesis is simple: invest in dope founders. In practice, that means software companies with a clearly repeatable customer acquisition strategy, and physical products in legacy industries that haven’t seen innovation in a decade or more. Mac is now raising Fund II with plans to double his average check to around $350,000, and his long-term goal is for RareBreed to become this generation’s First Round Capital.
Mac grew up in Baltimore, the son of an Air Force veteran. He studied computer science at Morgan State University, where he earned a top-secret clearance through a National Security Agency student program, then left school to build software as a Department of Defense contractor. He is a two-time founder: his first startup, a crowdfunding platform, sold its IP to a division of a Fortune 100 company, and his second failed. He moved into venture in 2016 at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), where he became the first person of color on its investment team. There he led the creation of the Builder Fund, the first state-backed pre-seed fund in the country for women and minority founders, which Maryland went on to fund permanently. Mac is a Kauffman Fellow (Class 26) and a recurring investor on The Pitch podcast. He has also written for TechCrunch, and in 2025 he testified before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets on opening venture funds to more investors. Known to nearly 100,000 followers on X as “Mac the VC,” he’s as likely to meet his next founder at a cookout as at a conference.
What We’ll Cover:
- Mac’s path from Baltimore software engineer and two-time founder to building one of the most community-driven funds in venture
- How he raised a $10M Fund I on Twitter with 194 LPs and $10K minimums, and what emerging managers can borrow from that playbook
- Finding “rare breed” founders outside the big tech hubs, and why overlooked markets and legacy industries are full of opportunity
- What he looks for in a pre-seed check, and why customer acquisition matters more than having the best product
- Lessons from building the first state-backed pre-seed fund for underrepresented founders, and from testifying before Congress on access to capital
- Raising Fund II in a reset market, including the Series A gap, AI-or-nothing capital, and his advice for emerging managers building enduring firms
Who Should Attend:
- Emerging managers raising Fund I or Fund II, especially those building an LP base from scratch
- Pre-seed founders building outside major tech hubs or in overlooked industries
- Angels and accredited investors interested in backing emerging funds
- Ecosystem leaders and economic development organizations working to expand access to capital in their regions
About Venture Trailblazers:
Venture Trailblazers is an exclusive event series that educates and connects operators and investors across the global Founder Institute, VC Lab, and FI Venture Network communities. Each edition spotlights a leading voice from the ecosystem in a candid conversation on what’s driving the next wave of innovation in venture capital.
Venture Trailblazers is an exclusive event series that educates and connects operators and investors across the global Founder Institute, VC Lab, and FI Venture Network communities. Each edition spotlights a leading voice from the ecosystem in a candid conversation on what’s driving the next wave of innovation in venture capital.
About VC Lab:
VC Lab (https://GoVCLab.com) is the leading venture capital accelerator worldwide for new and emerging managers. 900+ funds have successfully completed the program, building ethical and enduring venture capital firms around the world. The program provides all the tools needed to launch a fund and close on capital in six months or less. Managers participate in weekly fund-building sprints, receive tactical advice from experienced domain experts, and join a collaborative, global community of peers. VC Lab also develops essential fundraising skills and offers access to Decile Hub, the trusted venture platform for VCs to generate top decile returns.
Learn more at https://GoVCLab.com and apply to the program at https://FI.co/apply/vc
About Founder Institute:
About Founder Institute:
The Founder Institute (https://fi.co/) is the World’s Largest AI-Native Company Builder, giving idea-stage, first-time founders, and employees making the leap to entrepreneurship the tools, global network, and proven methodology to build an AI-powered startup from zero to funding. Since 2009, our structured programs have helped over 9,000 founders across 100 countries raise more than $2BN in funding. Based in Silicon Valley and with chapters across 6 continents, our mission is to empower talented and motivated people everywhere to build impactful, AI-powered companies.
Additional Resources: Find more Startup Events (https://fi.co/events), learn about Funding Benchmarks and Milestones (https://fi.co/benchmarks), or visit our Insights Blog (https://fi.co/insights) for more startup tips.
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