This VC charges $0 for PR, and has 12 unicorns to show for it

Equity

TechCrunch

Founders, Silicon Valley, Finance, Ipo, Vc, Technology, Business News, Startups, Business, Venture Capital, News, Stock Market, Entrepreneurship, Techcrunch

4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tech is racing ahead while society struggles to keep up. Masha Bucher, founder and GP of Day One Ventures, built her firm around closing that gap by combining venture capital with hands-on PR to help portfolio companies not just raise money, but actually break through the noise. Day One's been an early backer of companies like World, Superhuman, and Remote.com, with 12 of its portfolio companies hitting multibillion-dollar valuations. Today on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan sat down with Bucher to talk about why traditional PR is broken, how she picks founders, and why every startup founder now needs to be chronically online. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Why Bucher thinks being a VC first makes her better at PR, and why the traditional PR model is "misaligned" for startups. How she vets building teams and finds the “most exceptional founders.” Why founders can't just pick one platform anymore, along with Bucher’s simple – and potentially contentious -- advice for getting started on social media. Subscribe to Equity on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	J.P. Morgan has teams to support you at every stage of your growth. As former founders who have worked in local markets themselves, the bankers at J.P. Morgan bring deep sector knowledge and lived experience to their clients. J.P. Morgan can help you navigate complexity with confidence, backed by real world insights and an entrepreneurial perspective. Get what your startup needs now at JPMorgan.com slash grow without limits.
0:24.3	JPMorgan is the Bank of the Innovation Economy.
0:27.6	Hello and welcome back to Equity TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of
0:31.6	startups.
0:32.3	I'm Rebecca Boulon, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us
0:37.0	explore a trend in the tech world and dive deep.
0:39.5	Today we're joined by Masha Bukher, founder and GP of Day One Ventures, and also well known as the VC Queen of Portfolio PR.
0:48.0	For those who don't know, Day One was an early investor in startups like Sam Altman's world, superhuman, remote.com.
0:53.8	The VC firm is known for its VC
0:55.6	plus PR model and hands-on support for startups, which we'll be getting into on the show today.
1:02.8	So, Masha, welcome. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me, Rebecca. Big fan of the show.
1:08.1	Yeah, so happy to have you here. So you founded Day 1 Ventures in 2018.
1:13.8	You've already grown from, what, was it, $11 million then to $450 million today?
1:19.4	It's a bit bigger than this.
1:21.1	We're not supposed to pronounce it.
1:23.2	Our lawyers wouldn't be happy as well as regulator, but it's over this number you just mentioned.
1:28.6	It's like up with nine numbers in AUM.
1:31.3	Okay, great.
1:32.1	Good to know.
1:33.0	You have described yourself as both a VC and an artist.
1:37.3	You've got this background in PR.
1:39.2	You started your first firm when you were 18, I believe.
	...

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