Battery Ventures’ New Partner Marcus Ryu Shares His Tips for Founders

• Battery Ventures is bringing on Guidewire Software cofounder Marcus Ryu as a new partner.
• Ryu will invest in cloud software, and particularly industry-specific software companies.
• A lifelong entrepreneur, he hopes to support founders the same way Battery supported his company. 

Venture capital firm Battery Ventures is bringing on a new investing partner, and its someone with hands-on startup experience. It’s the first new investing partner to join from outside the firm since 2015.

Cofounder and former CEO of insurance data platform Guidewire Software Marcus Ryu joined Battery Ventures last week as a new partner focused on investing in cloud software, particularly industry specific software companies. The move is rare given that Battery Ventures doesn’t bring on new partners very often, and Ryu is the founder of one of Battery’s portfolio companies. He’s joining to offer other founders the same type of support he got from Battery when he was in their position.

“For most of my professional life, I was assuming that I was an entrepreneur forever,” Ryu told Insider. “Along the way I got to know a lot of entrepreneurs, and found it incredibly rewarding to be sometimes an advisor, sometimes an empath, sometimes just a peer.” 

Throughout his career, Ryu served on startup boards as an advisor, and advised others informally as well. Eventually, he realized he wanted to continue doing that full time, he said. He chose Battery Ventures because of his history with the firm. In 2009 his company, Guidewire Software, was involved in an intense intellectual property dispute with a competitor that Battery helped it through. 

“It was a really serious crisis moment for my company,” he said. “Battery was very supportive in standing firm and fighting back. And we ended up getting the case dismissed.” 

Ryu led Guidewire to go public in 2012, and continued with the firm until he decided to step down in 2019. Battery Ventures invested in the firm’s $24.8 million Series C round before it went public in 2012. 

As an entrepreneur, he’s learned that it’s a journey with a lot of ups and downs that can be emotionally draining. From his experience, the entrepreneurs who are successful have the ability to be determined, but also reasonable. 

“That’s a hard combination to find because you have to be a little maniacal to want to start the journey and to survive the journey. But being too maniacal can lead to a kind of blindness,” he said. 

His top advice to founders looking to pitch him or his colleagues is to be authentic. Investors mainly want to see that someone has done their research on the market they’re disrupting while also understanding their motivations for starting a company. He would trade a less polished presentation for authenticity and insight, he said.

He’s not focused on investing at any particular stage in a company’s journey, since Battery Ventures invests across stages.