Welcoming Baiyin Murphy to Indicator Ventures
We’re excited to announce that Baiyin (Zhou) Murphy has joined us as Indicator’s newest General Partner.
Indicator Ventures was founded more than 6 years ago as a way to partner with extraordinary founders at the earliest stages building software to make work, health, and wealth-building easier and more accessible. With 40+ portfolio companies and $40M+ invested to date, it’s time to expand the partnership as we scale along with our companies.
Adding a new partner is a profound organizational change. These are long-term decisions built on longer-term relationships, and it was imperative we found someone who possessed the network, skills, EQ, IQ, and cultural fit to give founders and our firm an edge. Baiyin has all that, and more, and we couldn’t be more excited to call her a Partner.
We’ve had the opportunity to get to know Baiyin over the last six years personally and professionally. She has an intellectual curiosity that drives her to thoroughly understand every business; she has the perfect mix of investment and board expertise to work with founders who she is able to closely connect with; she has a deep and diverse network within the startup ecosystem; and she brings a level of operational and institutional fund experience that Indicator will benefit from immensely. As a bonus, she’s also fluent in three languages. She is the perfect complement to our team.
Baiyin was born in China and at a very young age moved to Montreal with her parents who left everything behind in pursuit of better opportunity. They later immigrated to Northern Virginia where her parents still live. From constantly switching schools, having to learn new languages, and growing up in a scrappy immigrant family, Baiyin developed a deep appreciation for what it takes to dream big, compete and win against all odds. This is the mindset that attracted her to venture capital.
After leading and founding an impact organization at The College of William & Mary during a time where few people cared about or had heard of the term “ESG”, and spending two years as an investment banker at BB&T Capital Markets during the financial crisis, Baiyin was ready to transition to venture capital.
Baiyin comes with nine years of tech investing experience at reputable firms such as ClearSky, OpenView, and Ascent Venture Partners. She began her VC career building expertise in cybersecurity and has since expanded to enterprise software, digital health and fintech. She specializes in helping companies with an initial product build the go-to-market team and process necessary to reach true product-market fit. She’s served on boards and invested in dozens of companies such as Cylance (acquired by Blackberry for $1.4B), Resilient Systems (acquired by IBM), Lesson.ly, Splash, GR8 People and Connected2Fiber. Her experience investing in early and expansion stage enterprise technology businesses makes her a compelling partner and advisor to Indicator companies, which are scaling quickly. Her previous experience at high performing funds with various investing models brings our firm a welcomed fresh perspective.
If you’ve met Baiyin, you’ll notice her instant ability to deeply connect with and empathize with people of all backgrounds. At the end of the day, venture capital is a people and relationships business. It’s not enough to find the next hot deal or negotiate the best terms. The best VCs have an ability to reach founders in unlikely places, empathize with their worldview, and establish a trust and bond to work together to take their companies to the next level. In a world where founders have many choices of capital, Baiyin has won deals and been asked to serve on boards because of founders’ trust and connection with her. It’s no surprise that the first two companies (CapWay and Expectful) Baiyin has already invested in with Indicator are led by women of color.
She is an active member of the Boston community, serving on the board of the New England Venture Network, a community of emerging VC leaders, and as a docent at the Museum of Fine Arts. Baiyin and her husband Austin are based in Boston but love escaping to Miami with their pup Hunter.
Baiyin embodies Indicator’s culture and values and we look forward to building our firm’s future with her. This is an exciting time for our firm, and we look forward to a healthy and wonderful 2021!
