About Bonfire Ventures
Bonfire Ventures is one of the nation's most impactful seed-stage venture capital firms. With $1B in assets under management, we invest in founders and teams at the beginning of their journey and partner with them o help achieve their ambitious goals. Despite our substantial portfolio, we maintain a focused team of just 10 people, ensuring that each member plays a critical role in our success.
Position Overview
We are seeking an Operations & AI Lead to drive innovation and efficiency across our firm's operations and investment processes. This role offers a unique opportunity to make a significant impact beyond traditional back-office functions. You will be at the forefront of implementing cutting-edge AI solutions, optimizing our systems, and serving as a valued resource for both our internal team and portfolio companies.
Key Responsibilities
Primary Role: Systems, Tooling, and AI Optimization
- Enhanced Opportunity Sourcing: Leverage diverse data sources to identify "in the strike zone" founders and companies, driving programmatic outbound outreach and engagement.
- Thorough Due Diligence: Develop and implement processes to conduct a comprehensive analysis of potential investments, including competitive landscape assessment and founder background research.
- Investment Decision Streamlining: Gather and synthesize communications and information on investment opportunities, using AI to create summarized investor memos and scorecards for more efficient and effective investment committee decisions.
Secondary Role: AI Investment Evaluation
- Assist the investment team in evaluating new AI-native application software companies.
- Assess the AI-readiness and technical sophistication of founding teams.
- Evaluate product development approaches for alignment with current best practices.
- Identify potential technical moats and competitive advantages.
Tertiary Role: Portfolio Company AI Support
- Serve as a resource for portfolio companies seeking to become more AI-savvy.
- Provide guidance on effectively incorporating AI into product development.
- Advise on leveraging AI across operations to enhance efficiency and competitive advantage.
Qualifications & Skills
- Systems Implementation Expertise: Extensive experience deploying and configuring systems of record, particularly prospecting databases, CRM systems, workflows, and APIs.
- Generative AI Proficiency: Demonstrated experience deploying AI assistants and agents alongside underlying systems or external data sources to deliver breakthrough solutions. Familiarity with platforms such as OpenAI, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, etc.
- Technical Capability: Ability to write appropriate code when needed to complete solutions.
- Product Management Skills: Exceptional internal product management abilities, including:
- Identifying pain points and defining jobs to be done
- Creating well-defined product scopes
- Delivering impactful solutions quickly and effectively
Experience Requirements
- Minimum 3-5 years of experience deploying systems and tools in similar roles
- At least one year of effectively leveraging generative AI beyond personal use
- First-principles thinking approach to problem-solving
- Obsession with getting s%$ done quickly
- Experience working with startups and/or venture capital firms (preferred)
- College degree required, technical / ops / design-related fields preferred.
Why Join Bonfire Ventures
- High-Impact Role: Direct influence on firm operations, investment decisions, and portfolio company success.
- Broad Exposure: Engage with innovative early-stage companies across various sectors
- Industry Leadership: Help shape how venture capital firms leverage AI and modern systems
- Small, Elite Team: Work closely with experienced investors in a more collaborative environment than is typical for VC.
- Partner Level Management: You will work directly for one of our general partners who will provide the needed mentorship and oversight.
Location & Compensation
Our firm is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. As we are a small, knit team and this role will collaborate closely with the team, we strongly prefer the role to be in LA. That being said, strong candidates in the West Coast time zone will be considered as well.
As to compensation, Bonfire Ventures is very competitive in paying market salaries / bonuses consistent with the candidate's experience. In addition, there is an opportunity initially or overtime to earn carry in each of our go-forward funds commensurate with candidate experience and contributions.