Carter Weiss is founder and partner at Silas Capital, a venture firm whose focus is on entrepreneurs building businesses in the underserved early-stage consumer products and services segments, where Silas is providing venture and growth stage capital.
He began is career in venture capital at Hollinger Capital, where he made successful investments in consumer Internet companies, including shopping.com. Prior to joining Hollinger, he was an associate at the venture capital firm, Cornerstone Resources, and an M&A analyst at the CIS Corporation.
In 2003, Weiss cofounded Built NY, Inc. and also served as CEO, growing the company into an internationally recognized and highly profitable consumer products brand and, with a total equity investment of $1.5 million, took sales from zero to approximately $30 million. Under his leadership, Built NY grew to selling in over 50 countries around the world, with retailers including Amazon, Apple, MoMA, Target and Whole Foods. BUILT was acquired by Lifetime Brands, Inc. (Nasdaq: LCUT).
After Built NY, Inc., Weiss founded Silas Capital in 2011, where he is an active partner. The company has had great success, and actively invests in emerging brands such as Bare Snacks, Casper, Ringly, ProenzaSchouler, Tracksmith, and Modria. Weiss himself also invests in the brands HICKIES and CircleUp.
Weiss began his career at Trans World Airlines as Accounting Supervisor, before moving over to TWA subsidiary, Travel Marketing Corp (formerly The Travel Channel).
He received his B.A. in Accounting from Pennsylvania State University.
Venture Capital Firm
Silas Capital (Founded 2011)
Expertise areas
Specialty consumer, consumable goods, online/internet, and traditional retail
Selected Investment
Bare Snacks, Casper, Ringly, ProenzaSchouler, Tracksmith,Modria, HICKIES, CircleUp.
Winners
Shopping.com sold IPO 2004 then to eBay in 2005
Vault.com sold to private equity in 2008
Boards
Audioms (Advisor)
Bare Fruit (Advisor June 2013- August 2014)
Fizziology (Advisor June 2012)
SCOTTeVEST (Advisor)
Social Media:
Twitter
LinkedIn
Personal Website
Memorable Quotes
On Built NY’s success: “There I raised only about a million, million and a half dollars in total equity for Built. We grew it to not a huge company, but a $30 million company. And every year sales grew, and every year the company was profitable; which is a little unusual for venture. So doing $30 million in revenue and $5 million in evitauis a nice return on a million dollars in equity, and that also became a touch stone for what we do here [at Silas Capital].”
On investment strategies: “We like companies under $20 million in revenue in that category. So if you have a consumer brand whether it’s technology focused or more traditional, whether it’s online or offline, if you have $5-$10 million in revenue that’s our main bucket. Those are the companies we want to help grow.”
On working with companies:“We are gonna look to see what they’ve accomplished with the limited resources and a limited time…so we get pretty excited when somebody comes in and does not have a lot of capital, and they’ve accomplished a fair amount. Because then we’re saying to ourselves ‘what if we actually gave these guys some money to work with? They could really tear things up.’”
