E7: In and out of Dark Mode: Rapha Danilo’s Balancing Act as a Venture Capitalist

In the bustling world of venture capital, where full-time dedication is the norm, Rapha Danilo and his partners, Kat and Amir, at Darkmode Ventures are breaking new ground with a unique model, challenging the assumption that venture success requires complete immersion. This approach allows them to remain active in their respective careers while still engaging deeply with early startups. It’s a setup offering a fresh perspective in VC - one that leverages real-time industry insights and networks to invest in exceptional talent. And for Darkmode, its hybrid model is more than just juggling responsibilities; it’s a strategic advantage that bridges the best of both worlds.

Rapha's story begins in the suburbs of Paris, where he first dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player. However, after moving to Los Angeles during his formative years, his perspectives widened, and took a shift toward entrepreneurship. While still in college, he co-founded a company that was later acquired by Gong—a journey driven by his desire to break through the meritocratic barriers he encountered growing up in France.

As Rapha and his partners navigated their primary careers—Rapha at Gong, Kat at Vareto, and Amir as an ongoing innovator and content creator in the Dev Tool space—they began to encounter a steady stream of talented founders and promising startups. These interactions revealed a common thread: a growing repository of undiscovered potential that deserved to be nurtured and championed. Driven by a shared conviction, Rapha and Kat launched Darkmode Ventures (previously: Evening Ventures), a fund with a genuine passion for supporting early-stage, B2B SaaS, DevTools, and infrastructure startups. 

Rapha and his partners set out to create a new kind of venture capital firm—one that aligns incentives across all parties involved, and the cornerstone of Darkmode's philosophy is the reinvestment of management fees into their portfolio. 

“This is a really cool feature that AngelList enabled, kudos to the AngelList team for thinking ahead there.  I totally respect emerging funds that need to bring forward management fees. And so,  instead of having even that 2% flat structure, they say 3-4%, the first few years, and then it tapers off.

If you need those fees, not just to live as a GP, but to pay for an office, pay for travel, et cetera, especially if you're full time, you need to maybe even hire someone, right?  So I totally appreciate that need.

In our case, we don't have an office. We don't have an assistant. We don't have a chief of staff. It's just the three of us. So we have very, very, very little fees outside of our fund admin.  We don't care about getting paid a salary out of the fund today.

We're playing the long game and we think the returns are going to be so much higher from recycling the capital.  And essentially having a higher stake in the fund. And there's other secondary advantages, like tax advantages to sort of recycling that capital and having it be like long term capital gains.

 The core tenant is, is If you don't absolutely need the fees  to live today, I think Recycling that into the fund aligning your incentives with the lps where like my success is my LP’s success, I think it just speaks louder than any other pitch that you can put on a deck.”

This commitment to playing the long game ensures the focus remains squarely on creating quality value and fostering growth, and despite the dual demands of the team’s roles, Rapha emphasizes the importance of collaboration and operational involvement with their portfolio companies. By leveraging their expertise as operators, they are able to provide founders with tangible, tactical support, ranging from talent recruitment to product development and customer acquisition strategies from the best in business.

Darkmode’s innovation is not just about capital investment; it’s about being ingrained partners who understand the challenges of scaling a startup firsthand. The fund's success lies in its ability to remain agile, responsive, and uniquely positioned to support companies in navigating the very early stages.

Meeting exceptional people, seeing untapped potential, and genuinely wanting to enable others are what drive Rapha and his partners to seamlessly balance two demanding worlds. As they continue to grow Darkmode, this unique alignment of purpose and vision stands as a testament to their belief in synergy between their careers and their passion for helping founders at the earliest stages.  

You can find Rapha’s open door at rapha@darkmode.vc or connect on LinkedIn

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