# Benjamin Orthlieb

> Benjamin (Ben) Orthlieb is co-founder and General Partner of Blue Moon VC, an AI-native seed fund (formerly 2.12 Angels / 2|Twelve) based in San Francisco. He spent over a decade at LinkedIn, most recently as VP and Head of Corporate Development for M&A and Investments, before turning a side scout practice with Emergence Capital into a quantitative seed firm that screens roughly 9,000 founding teams a year and graduates portfolio companies to Series A at nearly triple the market rate.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & General Partner at Blue Moon VC (Fund II)
- **Organizations:** Blue Moon VC, 2.12 Angels, LinkedIn, Emergence Capital, Oracle, Boston Consulting Group, Barclays, BNP Paribas
- **Education:** MBA, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
- **Known for:** Two unicorns from the 2021 vintage of 2.12 Angels, Reported 45-50% seed-to-Series A graduation rate across 2021-2023 funds vs. ~14% market average, Ranked top 1-2% of seed funds by TVPI for its vintage

## Career timeline

- **earlier** — Investment banking at BNP Paribas and Barclays
- **earlier** — Consultant at Boston Consulting Group
- **earlier** — Strategy and corporate development at Oracle (Public Cloud)
- **10+ years** — Joined LinkedIn, rising to VP and Head of Corporate Development - M&A and Investments
- **pre-2021** — Venture scout at Emergence Capital
- **2021** — Co-founded 2.12 Angels (later 2|Twelve) with Romain Serman
- **2025** — Rebranded the firm as Blue Moon VC and began deploying Fund II

## Achievements

- Two unicorns from the 2021 vintage of 2.12 Angels
- Reported 45-50% seed-to-Series A graduation rate across 2021-2023 funds vs. ~14% market average
- Ranked top 1-2% of seed funds by TVPI for its vintage
- Processes roughly 9,000 founding teams a year via proprietary AI sourcing
- Built and deployed six in-house AI agents (Agatha, Da Vinci, Raphael, Kojak, Bloomberg, Slash)
- Portfolio reported by the firm to be ~10x more diverse than market averages for women and underrepresented founders

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — Rebrand from 2.12 / 2|Twelve to Blue Moon VC announced on the Driving Alpha podcast with Alpha Partners.
- **2025** — Blue Moon Fund II actively deploying into North American B2B enterprise SaaS at seed.

## Links

- Website: https://blue-moon.vc
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benorthlieb/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/212angels
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyCc-Qx8RIY

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/benjamin-orthlieb
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-20