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- nancy hilliker - rps ventures
nancy hilliker - rps ventures
“I've developed an allergy to deals driven by FOMO and hype. The more hype and investors looking at a deal, the less confident I am in a good return.”
Connect with Nancy
VC Uncovered's View
Nancy Hilliker's investment philosophy—grounded in Buffalo's neighborly values and sharpened through hard-earned experience—represents what we value at VC Uncovered: thorough research over hype, and sustainable growth over exaggerated projections.
Nancy's investor journey makes her insights valuable. After seeing momentum-driven deals fail, she developed an "allergy" to hype, increasingly important in today's market where social validation sometimes earns more attention than business fundamentals. Her rigorous approach to verifying customer pipelines and questioning profitability assumptions exemplifies what venture capital needs going forward.
Nancy's story reinforces our core belief that venture capital works best at the right pace and scale. Her preference for collaborative funding rounds with multiple VCs contributing different perspectives creates an environment for more balanced, thoughtful investment decisions.
As AI makes advanced technology more accessible, Nancy's focus on backing founders with drive, logical thinking, and self-awareness helps her identify truly transformative opportunities among the noise.
Meet Nancy
Q: If you could be anywhere, eating, drinking, and reading whatever you like most, where would you be and what would those things be? |  |
Key Quotes
“I've developed an allergy to deals driven by FOMO and hype. The more hype and investors looking at a deal, the less confident I am in a good return.”
“Stay humble and hungry. New startups are being born every day. The world is changing constantly. It's difficult to know that today's idea will be successful in 10 years.”
“There's nothing more valuable than someone who works hard and finds ways to succeed no matter what cards he or she is dealt.”
“AI isn't replacing humans any time soon, but it's driving a shocking amount of productivity improvements and making hard things much easier for the average human.”
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Original Responses (Lightly Edited for Clarity and Flow)
Background and Personal Journey
Experiences Shaping My Investment Approach
Being From Buffalo / My Mom >> Be Nice (& Go Bills)
I grew up in Buffalo, NY, the "city of good neighbors," where people prioritize kindness and the Bills over almost everything else (have you seen the Bills Mafia donations?). For me, having empathy for a founder and the patience to listen during challenging moments is both rewarding and essential for building trust.
Working for My First Mentor Covering Luxury Brands >> Passion Will Drive Expertise
Oliver, a former colleague, was one of the most creative people I've worked with and extremely passionate about the luxury retail sector. He constantly created events and initiated conversations that enhanced our public company research. These activities generated new data points, broadened our perspectives, and made our work more enjoyable. I realized that the more I enjoy the industry I'm analyzing, the more likely I am to stay informed about companies and trends as they evolve, and ultimately find satisfaction in my work!"
Revolution Growth >> Show me the Receipts!
My time at Revolution was important in driving discipline into investment decisions. Underwriting a company involves minimizing areas of uncertainty and increasing confidence in data-supported areas.
Moment Inspiring Venture Capital Career
Back in 2017, I was working in equity research and covering large public retailers and manufacturers. Then, so many retailers stagnated, went bankrupt, and struggled to move online while e-commerce thrived. I remember attending a panel with Jeff Raider (Harry's Shaving, Warby Parker) and Katia Beauchamp (Birchbox) at the Crosby Hotel and listening to their founding stories and nimble operating teams. They were rapidly building the next generation of consumer companies – they had a special knack for understanding customers, driving enjoyable engagement, and quickly solving growth pain points within their small businesses. I left the event (as J.Lo entered the hotel!), and I couldn't sleep that night - I knew I had to be a part of the wave of innovation and went back to business school to change careers.
Unconventional Belief
I've developed an allergy to deals driven by FOMO ("fear of missing out") and hype. The more hype and investors looking at a deal, the less confident I am in a good return. There's usually not enough time to validate assumptions, or the founder doesn't have to provide the same level of diligence. It's often reflective of a groupthink mentality or the power of a founder's persuasion, which can be great when it comes to the selling motion, but also can happen when there is less data to back up a pitch.
Best Advice Received
Stay "humble and hungry." New startups are being born every day. The world is changing constantly. It's difficult to know that today's idea will be successful in 10 years. So I always stay humble about my expected outcomes, focus on sustainable investments with realistic returns instead of big ideas with a wide potential outcome, and never invest in just momentum or expectation of success.
Philosophy and Insights
Values When Working with Founders
Hustle – There's nothing more valuable than someone who works hard and finds ways to succeed no matter what cards he or she is dealt.
Logic – If a, then b. I love being provided with enough, clear, and well-thought-out information to draw the appropriate conclusion.
No Ego – It's a red flag when a founder gets defensive about diligence requests or has no awareness of their ability to fail.
The Perfect Founder Pitch
I love a good "why this needs to exist" fact/rationale and a "why now?" followed by a clear line of traction to date. Many companies start with a marginally different technology than that of an incumbent or competitor. While a startup can see great growth in the present, I always wonder how long it can last. Having a clear market catalyst alongside good fundamentals makes the decision easy.
Approach to Risk
A few investments in my career have been fundamental in changing how I think about a deal. When I first helped to underwrite these investments, there was a lot of excitement around the founders, sector momentum, and a good amount of "FOMO"; both also needed a minimum level of volume to be gross margin profitable, and both expected to get to that scale in less than 12 months. In each case, companies shared impressive pipeline documents and the (theoretical) ease with which they'd hit scale.
Spoiler alert – less than 2 years later, both were also heavily restructured.
After these tough decisions, I am more disciplined about confirming pipeline depth, speaking to customers, and digging into key assumptions that drive profitability. I am also more hesitant to invest in capital-intensive businesses without a clear, supportable path to profitability.
Trends and Future Vision
Exciting Trends and Technologies
We are currently in a phase where we are democratizing technology, which I believe will empower a new generation of innovators.
Much of the recent democratization has been powered by AI applications. AI is becoming credible, reliable, and resourceful. It's not replacing humans any time soon, but it's driving a shocking amount of productivity improvements and making hard things much easier for the average human.
Today, people often prefer Perplexity, ChatGPT, or other LLMs over Google to get simplified, well-sourced answers. Others use Granola integrated with email to obtain essential insights quickly in a more efficient format. A non-engineer can create basic applications on Cursor without knowing much about coding.
Over time, hopefully, this is all part of a bigger engine of learning, reskilling, and making old tech better and more approachable. It could have enormous implications for previously inaccessible jobs now available to more people.
Improving the VC Ecosystem
I wish we all worked together on more deals. In many cases today, a single VC takes most of a round, with insiders or strategics taking the rest. With smaller checks and more institutional VCs in a round collaborating on an investment, you can learn from each other's diligence, foster more diverse perspectives, and provide different value add.
Challenges for Early-Stage Founders
A mindset shift occurs from early-stage venture to later-stage or growth-stage companies. It is the moment when founders go from bright-eyed and bushy-tailed entrepreneurs to CEOs of companies, where there are still exciting growth opportunities and more complex ups and downs. It occurs when founders need to begin delegating, trusting their teams, and letting the company grow as it would without the founder wearing all the hats. Even the most successful companies go through this point where founders reprioritize how they think of growth, things like hiring the right level of staff, replacing old tech, bigger than expected dilution, rightsizing a team, culling burn profiles, and changing industry trends. Ideally, this is what a board can help with.
In these last few years, the environment has been so founder-friendly that some investors have supported founders at all costs, leaving founders surprised as the industry shifted from wild valuations to a prioritization of profitability, and unaware of their operating risks.
I'd love to see more early-stage investors have more candid conversations with founders and push founders to think about growth as more than just top-line growth, or expose their founders to these ideas in other ways.