# Chapter One

> Chapter One is a Los Angeles-based seed-stage venture firm founded by former Tinder product executive Jeff Morris Jr. It backs product-driven founders across AI, fintech, crypto, SaaS, developer tools, consumer software and the physical world, pairing early capital with product, design, data and fundraising help. Its portfolio includes companies such as Mercury, Supabase, Turing, Compound Finance, Ondo Finance, Helius, Hyperbolic, Ragie and Mach Industries.

- **Founded:** 2017
- **Headquarters:** Los Angeles, United States
- **Founders:** Jeff Morris Jr. (Founder & General Partner)
- **Team size:** LinkedIn lists 2-10 employees; the supplied commercial record reports 32 employees, so the public headcount is uncertain.
- **Products:** Seed-stage investment, Product and data support, Design and brand support, Fundraising and follow-on support, Builder programs and events
- **Notable:** Jeff Morris Jr. says he has backed 11 unicorns at seed, including Mercury, Supabase, Turing, Compound Finance and Ondo Finance., Chapter One's 2021 $40 million early-stage fund attracted commitments from Sequoia, Bessemer, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed, plus Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon personally., The firm backed Supabase, Mercury and Turing before they became widely recognized growth companies.

## Products & services

- **Seed-stage investment** — Early capital for product-driven companies, primarily at pre-seed and seed, across AI, fintech, crypto, SaaS, developer tools, consumer and physical-world categories.
- **Product and data support** — Hands-on product feedback, data analysis and operator context from a team with experience at Tinder, Twitter, Scale AI and other technology companies.
- **Design and brand support** — Portfolio assistance on product design, brand and customer-facing execution through in-house and partner design experience.
- **Fundraising and follow-on support** — Curated introductions and advice about later-stage investors, including matching founders with partners whose investment tastes fit the company.
- **Builder programs and events** — Hackathons, community events and earlier incubation experiments designed to find and help technical founders before a conventional seed process.
- **Research, tools and media** — Public analysis, podcasts and internally built software intended to make sourcing, diligence and portfolio support more systematic.

## Achievements

- Jeff Morris Jr. says he has backed 11 unicorns at seed, including Mercury, Supabase, Turing, Compound Finance and Ondo Finance.
- Chapter One's 2021 $40 million early-stage fund attracted commitments from Sequoia, Bessemer, Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed, plus Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon personally.
- The firm backed Supabase, Mercury and Turing before they became widely recognized growth companies.
- Chapter One participated in Hyperbolic's $725,000 pre-seed and continued into later rounds as the AI cloud company reached $20 million in total funding by December 2024.
- It co-backed Ragie's $5.5 million 2024 seed round for managed retrieval-augmented generation infrastructure.
- Its portfolio now spans AI/ML, consumer, crypto, defense, developer tools, fintech, physical-world technology and SaaS.

## Latest updates

- **2026-06** — Chapter One joined Bain Capital Crypto, ParaFi, Nascent, Robot Ventures and Consonant Ventures in Ground's $3.6 million pre-seed round for onchain financial API infrastructure.
- **2026-04** — Chapter One participated in Blackstar's $12 million seed round for a new computer designed around human-AI interaction.
- **2025-09** — Jeff Morris Jr. published an essay on longevity, status and the tension between optimization and joy through the firm's latest feed.
- **2025-08** — Chapter One highlighted its Summer Hack, a two-day builder event with 19 startup sponsors, cash prizes, bounties and product credits.
- **2025-08** — Morris argued for fast, independent seed decisions in the essay 'Non-Consensus is Dead. Long Live Non-Consensus.'
- **2025-07** — The firm opened a search for a San Francisco-based investment partner and described the team as operators turned investors.
- **2025-05** — Jamesin Seidel became a General Partner after working across Chapter One's investing, diligence and builder programs.
- **2025-01** — Chapter One partnered with UK university AI and entrepreneurship societies plus Bessemer, Dawn Capital and Seedcamp for the AI Engine hackathon.

## Links

- Website: https://chapterone.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chapter-one-ventures/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/chapterone

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/chapter-one
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-12