Russ Bennett spent about 21 years at Fraedom, helping it grow from 3 people to more than 450 before its acquisition by Visa, and later worked on infrastructure at Plexure that handled over 120 billion API calls a year for McDonald's loyalty program across dozens of countries. He originally wanted to be a fighter pilot before switching to software, still skydives, and often says that missed opportunities can turn out to be gifts in disguise.
About their Fund
EVP is known for high founder affinity, ranking #2 in Astral Ventures' anonymous VC Leaderboard among ANZ funds and ahead of many larger names, and for being a low-profile, relationship-driven firm led by Howard Leibman, known as the founder whisperer, who takes an active, hands-on approach by sitting on boards like Practice Ignition and Deputy and building concentrated portfolios rather than spreading bets across many companies. The fund now focuses specifically on early-stage AI-first software companies building for global scale, backing serious software businesses at the Series A stage using criteria like economic quality, earned founder market fit, and compounding advantage, while also offering structured support such as executive hiring through resources like Talent_OS.
















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