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Founders Fund had invested in every funding round in Flexport to date, leading three. That included “backstopping” Petersen when he struggled to find an outside lead at one point, he said. More recently, the firm has supported Petersen continuing to spend ample time working with Flexport; several other partners at the firm lead or spend part-time on other firm-backed companies, including Anduril, OpenStore and Varda.
“If Ryan finds even one young founder as talented as he, he’ll be an investor everybody wants on their team,” Founders Fund founder Peter Thiel said via an emailed statement. Leading investment rounds and taking board director seats, of course, requires different skills than writing checks to founder peers. “I have a pretty good track record, but we probably need to throw it out because it’s a very different style of investing,” Petersen admitted. “I’m going to be a bit of a rookie here, trying to learn from all of them.”