San Francisco's pre-VC scene is built on two things: conviction and precision. Right Side Capital Management has the conviction part down - they've deployed it into more than 1,900 early-stage tech companies since 2012, making quantitative bets before most investors have even scheduled a first call. The precision part? That's Katherine Francis's territory.
As Analyst at RSCM, Katherine sits at the operational core of one of the most volume-intensive investment firms in the country. Her mandate is the unsexy backbone of every deal cycle: venture fund accounting, administration, and the kind of financial hygiene that keeps a high-velocity portfolio from becoming an audit nightmare. She's been doing this - in one form or another - for nine straight years.
That's not a coincidence. Before RSCM, Katherine served as fund manager for a $2 billion fund administrator. Not analyst, not associate - fund manager. The kind of role where you learn what breaks when nothing works and what holds when everything does. Most people with that credential would have moved toward the front office. Katherine moved toward precision.
What "Fund Accounting" Actually Means
For a firm like RSCM - which runs a quantitative, data-driven model that evaluates hundreds of pre-VC applications with a speed and discipline closer to algorithmic trading than traditional venture - operational accuracy isn't a nice-to-have. It's structural. Every capital call, every allocation, every LP statement flows through the accounting layer. At 1,900+ portfolio companies, that layer is thick.
Fund accounting at this scale means managing the financial records of a portfolio that most funds would need three decades to accumulate. It means knowing the difference between a carried interest calculation that looks right and one that is right. It means the kind of work that doesn't get written up in TechCrunch but absolutely gets noticed when it goes wrong.
Katherine brings something rare to this role: the instinct of someone who has sat on the fund administrator side. She's seen what happens when the fund side and the admin side speak different languages. She's also seen what happens when they don't.
The RSCM Machine
Right Side Capital Management is not a typical VC firm. Founded in 2012 by Kevin Dick, Dave Lambert, and Jeff Pomeranz, RSCM built its entire model around the idea that pre-VC investment decisions could be made systematically - using data, pattern recognition, and process rather than gut and Rolodex. The firm evaluates applications at a cadence that leaves most seed funds looking leisurely.
The result: a portfolio of over 1,900 companies, and a team built less around partners-in-suits and more around operators who can run the infrastructure. Katherine's colleagues include a Controller with nine years in venture fund operations, a Head of Marketing who has participated in 30+ startups, and a Funding Ecosystem Partner who spent time at Microsoft and LinkedIn. These are builders, not schmoozer. Katherine fits.
The Quiet Power of Operations
Venture capital has a glorification problem. The partners get the profiles. The deals get the headlines. The fund operations - the actual machinery that makes it possible for capital to move from LP to startup to return - stays invisible. Katherine Francis works in that invisibility by choice. Nine years of choosing it, in fact.
Her career arc tells you something. She didn't come up through investment banking, pivoting to VC to get closer to deals. She came up through fund administration - through the mechanics of how funds actually work - and built toward mastery there. The $2 billion fund she managed wasn't a stepping stone. It was the curriculum.
At RSCM, that curriculum is fully deployed. In a firm defined by systematic, high-frequency investing, the operational infrastructure needs to match the investment pace. Katherine is part of the team that makes that possible - keeping the accounting clean, the administration tight, and the fund's financial picture accurate across a portfolio that would tax most teams twice her size.
San Francisco, Pre-VC Stage
San Francisco's VC landscape is famous for its Series A swagger and its late-stage exits. What gets less attention is the pre-VC layer - the check writers who get in before the lead investors, before the narrative is formed, before the deal room fills with term sheets. RSCM operates entirely in that layer. Katherine operates in the infrastructure that makes that layer possible.
There's a version of this story where the analyst role at a small VC firm sounds modest. Katherine Francis's version isn't that story. She arrived at RSCM with more fund-management experience than many of the people who sign the checks at competitor firms. She chose operations. That choice is what makes the whole thing run.