Parcel B: Building a Community-Driven Fund to Back the Next Generation of Founders
Mar 20, 2025
Gavin Freeman
When Maia Bittner launched Parcel B, her goal wasn’t just to start another venture fund—it was to create an ecosystem to support founders who shared a unique bond: an Olin College education.
With a background as a founder, investor, and scout for VC funds, Maia had seen firsthand the challenges of early-stage investing. She started by building a syndicate to back companies founded by Olin alumni but quickly realized that model wasn’t fast or flexible enough to capture the best opportunities. So she transitioned to a committed capital fund structure, enabling her to scale investments while keeping the fund accessible to the Olin community.
A Fund Designed to Pay It Forward
Olin College, though small, produces an impressive number of entrepreneurs per capita—more than Stanford. But despite this, its alumni don’t have the same brand recognition or built-in funding networks as their counterparts at larger, more well-known institutions.
Parcel B was built to fill that gap.
The fund operates without management fees, and all carry is donated back to Olin College’s endowment—ensuring that as Olin alumni succeed, they give back to the very institution that shaped them. Parcel B’s LP base is made up entirely of Olin alumni, board members, and community supporters, reinforcing its mission of building a self-sustaining network of founders and investors.
Parcel B primarily follows lead investors into rounds, acting as a strategic capital partner to accelerate early-stage companies.
From Syndicate to Fund: Moving Faster and Scaling Impact
Before launching Parcel B, Maia had built a successful syndicate focused on Olin-founded startups. But she quickly encountered a coordination problem:
Deals moved too fast. By the time she gathered commitments and collected capital from syndicate LPs, top opportunities were already gone.
LPs wanted broad exposure. Many investors didn’t want to pick individual deals—they just wanted exposure to a pool of Olin-founded startups.
Switching to a fund model solved these challenges. With capital already committed, Maia and her team could move instantly on high-quality opportunities—no more scrambling for commitments before a round closed.
Leveraging Sydecar’s Fund+ for Flexibility and Speed
Launching a fund from scratch is a massive operational lift—but Sydecar’s Fund+ platform made it seamless for Maia and her co-GP.
One of the biggest advantages of this structure? Accessibility for LPs.
Parcel B’s investor base includes recent graduates, many of whom are early in their careers and unable to commit large sums of capital. Unlike other fund administration platforms with higher costs, Sydecar’s lower admin fees made it possible for Parcel B to accept LPs at lower commitment amounts—ensuring more alumni could participate.
Sydecar’s automation also helped streamline fund operations, cutting out time-consuming manual tasks.
What’s Next for Parcel B?
Parcel B is already thinking about Fund II and positioning itself to take bigger bets on early-stage founders, particularly in robotics and hard tech, which aligns with Olin’s strong engineering program. While the fund has already backed promising companies, the next step is to support founders even earlier in their journey, providing capital and resources before they gain the traction needed to attract traditional investors. By expanding its risk appetite and investing at earlier stages, Parcel B aims to unlock even more opportunities for Olin alumni entrepreneurs.
The fund was designed to be more than just a source of capital—it’s a community-driven flywheel. As Olin founders succeed, they create more opportunities for the next generation, reinforcing a cycle of growth, mentorship, and reinvestment. This model ensures that as the fund scales, so does its impact—strengthening the Olin entrepreneurial ecosystem for years to come.
By leveraging Sydecar’s Fund+ to maintain operational efficiency, flexibility, and speed, Parcel B is well-positioned to scale. To learn more about how Sydecar supports emerging fund managers like Parcel B, visit our Fund+ page here:
