The Timeless Portfolio: Humans First Investing

As the Syndicate Lead for the Humans First Venture Syndicate at Alumni Ventures, I’ve built our investment approach around the belief that many of the most durable companies tend to be rooted in behaviors that have endured for millennia. This is not a claim about guaranteed performance — it’s an observation about historical patterns and today’s most significant consumer trends.

Our perspective isn’t abstract philosophy. It is informed by behavioral science, market data, and the performance histories of many notable companies. Platforms rise and fall, technologies shift, markets cycle — but human behavior often remains stable.

Why Humans First Matters for Investors

If you strip away the technology layer, many of the most notable companies of the last decade — Netflix, Airbnb, Duolingo, Peloton, Discord, Calm — scaled by amplifying behaviors that have existed across civilizations. They didn’t create new demand. They met enduring demand with modern tools.

And the markets surrounding these behaviors are substantial:

These categories reflect deeply ingrained human behaviors that have shown economic relevance across generations.

Through the Humans First Venture Syndicate, we seek to invest in founders building modern expressions of how people move, entertain, connect, grow, and find joy. These categories have historically shown resilience, and we believe they may continue to present durable opportunity.

The Humans First Framework

How do we identify what endures?
The Humans First Framework draws from evolutionary biology and behavioral science — disciplines that study the core instincts that shape human behavior across millennia.

These pillars reflect fundamental drivers of human behavior — forces that tend to persist even as technologies and platforms evolve.

Below, each pillar is paired with its mythological archetype, an aspirational modern category leader, and an example from the Alumni Ventures (AV) portfolio illustrating how the thesis appears today.

Biology & Mythology: The Ancient Mirror

Beginning in the 8th century BCE, Greek mythology personified humanity’s essential behaviors through gods and goddesses whose influence shaped culture, commerce, and community.

These archetypes reflect instincts that behavioral scientists now recognize as deeply embedded, cross-cultural drivers of human behavior.

Conclusion — Investing in What Endures

If venture capital had existed in ancient Greece, it might have focused on many of the same human forces that have contributed to the success of notable companies today: performance, story, connection, learning, and joy. These instincts have influenced societies across history, and we believe they may continue to inform meaningful consumer opportunity.

The Humans First Venture Syndicate invests at the intersection of these enduring behaviors and contemporary innovation. Our approach is informed by behavioral science, market data, and examples from today’s consumer landscape. While technological cycles can be volatile, we focus on areas where human behavior has historically shown stability.

Join the Humans First Venture Syndicate

If this thesis resonates with you — if you believe many of the strongest companies draw from the most fundamental parts of human behavior — we invite you to join our community of like-minded investors.

Our Kickoff Webinar will walk through the Humans First framework, share Alumni Ventures portfolio examples, and highlight where we see potential opportunity over the next decade.

Or, if you’re ready to participate more directly, you can join the Humans First Venture Syndicate, investing alongside a community aligned around these enduring human dynamics.

The companies that win the next decade won’t be the ones that invent new desires — they’ll be the ones that serve eternal ones.

Join Us (For Free)

Start Investing With the Human First Syndicate Today.

This communication is from Alumni Ventures, a for-profit venture capital company that is not affiliated with or endorsed by any school. It is not personalized advice, and AV only provides advice to its client funds. This communication is neither an offer to sell, nor a solicitation of an offer to purchase, any security. Such offers are made only pursuant to the formal offering documents for the fund(s) concerned, and describe significant risks and other material information that should be carefully considered before investing. For additional information, please see here. Example portfolio companies are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not necessarily indicative of any AV fund or the outcomes experienced by any investor. Example portfolio companies shown are not available to future investors, except potentially in the case of follow-on investments. Venture capital investing involves substantial risk, including risk of loss of all capital invested. This communication includes forward-looking statements, generally consisting of any statement pertaining to any issue other than historical fact, including without limitation predictions, financial projections, the anticipated results of the execution of any plan or strategy, the expectation or belief of the speaker, or other events or circumstances to exist in the future. Forward-looking statements are not representations of actual fact, depend on certain assumptions that may not be realized, and are not guaranteed to occur. Any forward-looking statements included in this communication speak only as of the date of the communication. AV and its affiliates disclaim any obligation to update, amend, or alter such forward-looking statements, whether due to subsequent events, new information, or otherwise.