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<\/a>Are you cobbling together a startup in New York City and looking for cash? Good news: A lot of wealthy and wired people want to write you a check.<\/p>\nMeet the newest batch: Lerer Media Ventures, a new fund run by Huffington Post cofounder Ken Lerer and his son, Thrillist co-founder Ben Lerer.<\/p>\n
The two men say they’re closing the fund’s first round in the next few days. Once they’re done they will have around $7 million to put into angel\/early stage investments — primarily in New York tech\/media companies, though they intend to play on the West Coast too.<\/p>\n
If you want a sense of what they’re looking for, check out deals they’re already done, like Hot Potato<\/a>, Paperless Post<\/a>, and GDGT<\/a>.<\/p>\n Their investors include a number of bold-faced names, at least by tech\/media standards. Among them: Pilot Group’s Bob Pittman; ZelnickMedia’s Strauss Zelnick; Softbank Capital partner Mike Perlis; Hunch co-founder (and prolific blogger<\/a>) Chris Dixon; Uber-angel investor Ron Conway; and Lerer’s cofounder Arianna Huffington.<\/p>\n The Lerers join the ranks of other investors interested in New York startups, including early stage venture capital shops Union Square Ventures<\/a>, Spark Capital<\/a> and First Round Capital<\/a>, and a set of smaller funds like IA Capital Partners<\/a>, BetaWorks<\/a> and Founder Collective<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fact that the last two funds are directly connected to the Lerers — Ken is an investor in Betaworks (and shares office space with them), and Chris Dixon is an investor in Founder Collective — shows just how interlinked the New York startup scene is. The same players seem to invest in the same deals, and now they’re investing in each other.<\/p>\n For instance: Check out the investor list<\/a> for Brooklyn-based Hot Potato, which looks a lot like the Lerers’ group.<\/p>\n Or consider the fact that Pittman once worked with Ken Lerer at AOL (AOL), and now funds Ben Lerer’s newsletter company. Or the fact that Perlis, via Softbank, is a Huffington Post investor, and that former Softbank partner and current Huffpo CEO Eric Hippeau will be an adviser to the new fund. Etc<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you’re a cynic, you might call that familiarity overly cozy. And you might worry about the chances of a startup that doesn’t find favor with the collective. If you’re an optimist, you’d say there’s nothing wrong with like-minded investors who like to collaborate.<\/p>\n No surprise what side Ken Lerer is on. And what about the growing number of people who want to invest in Web startups again? Not a problem, either.<\/p>\n “In angel investing, you don’t really have competitors. You go ahead and do your thing,” he insists. “I don’t look at Internet or Interent investing as competitive, generally. “<\/p>\n Fair enough. If anyone feels otherwise, sound off in the comments below.<\/p>\n And in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll note that even I have the faintest of links to the this group, though it’s mainly aspirational. Ken Lerer was an early backer in my former employer Silicon Alley Insider<\/a>, and I have the tiniest of investments<\/a> in that company, too.<\/p>\n [Image credit: Tony the Misfit<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n