Foundry Group

VC firm and Brad Feld's firm. A working definition from the RGM marketing glossary.

Schematic — Foundry Group

VC firm and Brad Feld's firm.

Term: Foundry Group
Field: Venture Capital
Category: Capital & Investing

What the term covers

Worth a slow read.Foundry Group is a capital concept your team should define once. A loose definition misaligns budgets and reporting.

VC firm and Brad Feld's firm.

Foundry Group is a capital & investing term for a capital concept. Agree the scope and two people stop talking past each other.

How operators apply it

Hold that thought.There is no single setting for Foundry Group. It bends to the audience, the channels, and the wider plan.

Foundry Group is not a switch you flip. It names a moving idea, and the way it plays out shifts with the setup. A lean team running one paid channel applies Foundry Group differently than a brand running ten. Use Foundry Group loosely and teams pull apart; pin it down and the math lines up.

One rule always holds. Settle the scope of Foundry Group up front, then build the plan. Get it backwards and Foundry Group becomes a word everyone uses and no one shares. Start here.

When it matters

Here is the short version.Use Foundry Group when it changes a choice. If it is not driving a decision, it is vocabulary, not leverage.

Foundry Group matters at the point of a decision. In capital & investing, three moments come up again and again. Outside them, Foundry Group is reference material.

Setting budget. Foundry Group marks where added spend will work hardest.
Choosing a metric. Foundry Group shows whether the report will hold up.
Comparing options. Foundry Group evens out a comparison that would otherwise mislead.

An example with real numbers

One idea, plainly put.Below, Foundry Group is put inside a a Series B marketplace setting -- real trade-offs, a clear baseline, and a figure to test it.

Consider a Series B marketplace. Running a CAC-to-LTV review, the team put Foundry Group at the center of the call. With a clean baseline and one fixed definition of Foundry Group, they read what moved: runway extended after re-pricing a 3:1 segment. The discipline is the lesson.

Worked example for Foundry Group -- illustrative figures, RGM analysis
Stage	The step taken	What it bought
Baseline	Took a before reading on Foundry Group.	A fixed point of truth.
Define	Fixed one meaning of Foundry Group for the test.	A shared definition up front.
Act	A CAC-to-LTV review — one variable.	Cause and effect, isolated.
Result	Runway extended after re-pricing a 3:1 segment	A decision the data earned.

Figures for Foundry Group here are illustrative and marked RGM analysis. Copy the method, not the exact numbers.

Where teams go wrong

Keep this in mind.Four failure modes recur with Foundry Group. Name them and they are easy to design around.

One blanket rule. Applying Foundry Group the same way everywhere. Split it by audience, channel, and business model.
No context. Reporting Foundry Group with no baseline. A bare number cannot be judged.
Vanity focus. Gaming Foundry Group instead of the result. Tie it to business value.
Apples to oranges. Comparing Foundry Group across firms raw. Adjust for pricing and cycle before you read it.

Frequently asked questions

What does Foundry Group mean?

VC firm and Brad Feld's firm. Agree the scope of Foundry Group before the planning starts.

What makes Foundry Group worth knowing?

Foundry Group shows up in budget reviews and channel reporting. Use it loosely and teams pull apart; use it precisely and the numbers line up.

Where does Foundry Group get used?

Foundry Group informs a decision -- most often a budget, a metric choice, or a comparison. The a Series B marketplace example above shows the pattern.

Where do teams slip up on Foundry Group?

Using Foundry Group flat across every segment and showing it without context. Both make a guess look exact.

What does Foundry Group mean?: VC firm and Brad Feld's firm. Agree the scope of Foundry Group before the planning starts.
What makes Foundry Group worth knowing?: Foundry Group shows up in budget reviews and channel reporting. Use it loosely and teams pull apart; use it precisely and the numbers line up.
Where does Foundry Group get used?: Foundry Group informs a decision -- most often a budget, a metric choice, or a comparison. The a Series B marketplace example above shows the pattern.