Scott Holloway Joins Starting Line as a Venture Partner, to Invest In 99% Ideas Where No One Else is Looking

CHICAGO, Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting Line, an early stage Venture Capital Fund investing in consumer startups that are focused on democratizing access to technologies, products, and experiences for the 99% of Americans, is proud to announce the addition of Scott Holloway as a Venture Partner. Holloway joins firm founder Ezra Galston, early Trunk Club employee Haley Kwait Zollo and Formspring/Formstack founder Ade Olonoh on the firm's investment team. Starting Line, which announced its $17M Fund I in November 2019, has made early seed investments into numerous fast growing companies such as Cameo, Made In Cookware and Unchained Capital.

Holloway entered the startup world in 2013, honing his skills over six years as Instacart's 10^th employee, founding their first office outside of Silicon Valley, and subsequently launching dozens of additional markets. After Instacart, Holloway moved to Flexport where he managed their 180-person Chicago office and served as Senior Director and Central Region General Manager. Presently, Holloway is SVP Operations at Foxtrot, one of Chicago's breakout venture backed consumer startups.

"Ever since my first angel investment, Ezra has always been the first person that I send exceptional founders to speak with. He and the Starting Line team combine ruthless intelligence with obsessive curiosity in ways that most cannot. Starting Line moves at extraordinary speed and bets with conviction – which is my kind of firm. I'm thrilled to join Haley, Ade, and Ezra to partner with founders in bending the future."

In addition to Holloway's operating experience, he has, over the past few years, been aggressively investing into the next generation of founders. Some of these angel investments include Chicago based Provi (backed by Bessemer Venture Partners) and Nestegg (backed by Bonfire Ventures), as well as San Francisco based Shef (backed by Craft Ventures) and Adquick (backed by Initialized Capital.)

"I first met Scott in 2013 when he was standing up Instacart's Chicago office and scaling their marketplace outside of Silicon Valley for the first time," said Galston. "Over the ensuing eight years, he's become a world class executive, an accomplished angel investor, and a trusted voice to founders building high growth startups. The Starting Line portfolio is blessed to have access to his knowledge and we're excited for him to make a material impact as our firm continues to scale up."

Starting Line benefits from deep financial support amongst entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in both Chicago and the rest of the country, such as Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub, Bloomberg Beta, Wicklow Capital, Dan Levitan, Co-founder of Maveron, Nick Green, CEO of Thrive Market, and more.

SOURCE Starting Line