Before co-founding Base Ventures, Kirby spent years as a Vice President at a boutique private equity firm focused on project finance and alternative energy, giving him unusually deep experience in complex, capital-intensive, infrastructure-like deals compared with the typical software-only VC background. He applies lessons from his private equity career to startup work, particularly around business model development and understanding unit economics at an early stage, while also serving as a board member and lead investor in Space Perspective, a space tourism company developing high-altitude balloon flights to the stratosphere. Before co-founding Base Ventures, Kirby spent years as a Vice President at a boutique private equity firm focused on project finance and alternative energy, giving him unusually deep experience in complex, capital-intensive, infrastructure-like deals compared with the typical software-only VC background. He applies lessons from his private equity career to startup work, particularly around business model development and understanding unit economics at an early stage, while also serving as a board member and lead investor in Space Perspective, a space tourism company developing high-altitude balloon flights to the stratosphere.