The Story Behind Haystack’s Investment In Scribe

When Noah Jessop joined Founder Collective a few years ago, we met in person just to meet each other. I’ve luckily been friends with the folks at Founder Collective for a while. To give you a sense of how thoughtful they are, they spent the time introducing me, brick by brick, to some of their LPs. They didn’t have to do that. But they did. And now Noah was part of that group, so we became fast friends quickly.

Noah went on to follow his passion for building and crypto into a new venture. And along the way, he said, “you should also meet Jennifer (his partner). I’m biased, but she’s kind of a big deal.” He was right. I met Jennifer Smith last summer during lockdowns and almost invested in her company, back then called Cursive. Immediately it was apparent, Jennifer is simply super impressive. Looking back, it was another case of me trying to do a bit too much due diligence. I should’ve just invested in her, but I didn’t. By the grace of some higher power, she reached out to me again last fall, and she had made a lot of progress. A lot. After a few days, I said to her: “I’m in and I’ll help you raise every single round from here.”

There are no free lunches with Jennifer. She put me to work. In that seed round, she locked arms with Amplify Partners — one of the premier enterprise technology seed funds. My old friend Mike Dauber won the right to lead the round. He called me about her and said he nearly jumped out of his chair to lead the deal. To Mike’s credit, Jennifer informed me that Mike just starting making customer intros even before she officially shook hands. That’s what it takes to win competitive deals in compelling founders.

Since that seed round, Jennifer and the team have been on a tear. The company — now called Scribe (check out their website) — has been winning over customers at an incredible clip. You can read more about the specific offerings Scribe packages up, but what’s perhaps most exciting as an early stage investor is to see the pace at which the team is attracting and recruiting senior executives to its ranks. Stepping back for a moment, the category Scribe operates in — the rapidly-changing landscape of RPA — is drawing Scribe and others into the market with great speed. Jennifer as a CEO has been ready for this moment, and the moment is now here.

Folks who are curious can read about the company’s fresh new Series A financing today led by Evan Feinberg of Tiger Global. It’s super exciting for the team and for me to watch Jennifer make this transition. When Evan was conducting his due diligence, he asked me if all the glowing interactions with Jennifer for real. Yes, indeed, they are for real. Noah was right, and smart. Congrats to Jennifer, Aaron, and entire (growing) team at Scribe!