early-stage-vc
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The AI fund betting software’s next trick is doing the whole job
Untapped Ventures is narrowing the crowded AI trade to one provocative test: does the machine merely help, or can it finish the work? Its answer links early checks, operator sprints and a network of enterprise CEOs who may become a startup’s first serious audience.
Variant Bet on Ownership. Now It Wants to Fund Autonomy.
The New York venture firm made its name arguing that internet users should become owners. Its new $222 million fund stretches that idea into a broader test: does the technology give people more agency, or merely automate them?
The VC Betting Pakistan's Cash Economy Will Become Software
Zayn VC looks sector-agnostic until you follow the money. Across wallets, freight, fashion and student loans, its portfolio makes one recurring wager: digitize the transaction first, then build finance on top of it.
The VC Firm That Built a 2,000-Person Backchannel
Crosslink Capital sells founders something harder to wire than money: trusted access. Its Alpha network turns private dinners, operator introductions and three decades of investing into a practical company-building machine.
The Tiny Fund Betting the Next Great Software Market Has Factory Floors
REFASHIOND Ventures writes small early checks into the systems that make, move, and remake physical goods. Its edge is not check size - it is a map of industry built before supply chains became dinner-table conversation.
The Austin VC Firm Betting AI Will Leave the Chat Window
ATX Venture Partners built its name backing Texas software. Its newer thesis is more specific: applied AI that moves through factories, clinics, financial rails and orbit - with operators close enough to help when the software meets the real world.
Sierra Ventures Has Been Early for Forty Years. The Secret Is a Room Full of CXOs.
Since 1982, the San Mateo firm has quietly written first checks into enterprise software - from Intuit to quantum computing - while a standing network of Fortune 1000 executives does the vetting.
The VC Firm That Wants Four Bets - and a Seat in the Engine Room
Companyon Ventures does not sell founders on a giant portfolio or a famous logo wall. It makes four new bets a year, then tries to turn the messy stretch between product-market fit and Series A into an operating discipline.
The Check That Comes Before You Have a Company Bank Account
Farooq Abbasi built Preface Ventures to fund the engineers behind enterprise infrastructure - and got in so early on DX that a $2.8M-funded company became a $1B Atlassian deal.
The Tiny VC Fund Betting That Health, Food and Climate Are One Problem
Delphi treats a mushroom farm, a digital clinic and a psychedelic drug developer as pieces of the same puzzle: how to finance a healthier relationship between people and the planet.
The Small-Fund Advantage: Bull City’s Bet on Being the First Call
From Durham, Bull City Venture Partners has built a focused alternative to venture capital by writing early checks, keeping its portfolio tight, and treating access to the partners as part of the product.
Scrum Ventures Built a Two-Way Door Between Silicon Valley and Japan
The firm writes early-stage checks, then does something harder to copy: it turns Japanese companies, cities and even a baseball village into landing pads for global startups.
The Healthcare VC Selling Something Scarcer Than Money
Flare Capital has nearly $1 billion under management. Its sharper pitch is a network that turns healthcare's guarded buyers into advisers, pilot partners and customers.
Inspired Capital Wants the Napkin, Not the Hype Cycle
The New York firm has nearly $900 million, fewer than 10 new bets a year and a taste for founders still sketching the future. Its wager is that operating experience and patient conviction can beat venture capital by trend cycle.
The Fund That Bets on 30 Companies and Backs Teenagers
While rivals raise billion-dollar megafunds, A* is doing the opposite: fewer bets, bigger conviction, and a willingness to wire money to founders who are not old enough to rent a car.
R7 Is Betting the Next Great Software Company Will Have Moving Parts
The Chicago venture firm hunts where code meets atoms - backing lab robots, electric trailers, ocean maps and the stubborn machinery of everyday life.
The VC Firm Betting That Software Is About to Get Its Hands Dirty
Converge VC backs pre-seed through Series A companies where AI, software infrastructure and machines meet the stubborn physics of work. Its pitch is capital with operating memory - and fewer scripts for founders to follow.
The Climate Fund Betting the Future Still Runs Through a Pipe
Energy Capital Ventures built a narrow venture thesis around an unfashionable premise: decarbonization will have to work with existing gas infrastructure, not merely wish it away. Now data centers, industrial demand and a portfolio of strange machines are putting that bet to work.
CapitalX
CapitalX is a San Francisco early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2020 by general partner Cindy Bi. It writes $100K-$500K seed checks into enterprise, SaaS, AI, fintech and developer-tools startups, with larger follow-on positions through SPVs, and runs an online-first, high-conviction model backed by an unusually operator-heavy base of limited partners. The firm points to a portfolio that includes Zapier, Rippling, Cruise, Turing, Flutterwave and Boom Supersonic, and a run of unicorn outcomes as its calling card.
First Move
First Move is a founder-led early-stage venture capital firm backing founders across Southeast Asia, often writing the first cheque before there is a pitch deck. Founded in 2023 by former Fave executives Joel Neoh and Audra Pakalnyte, it uses YC-style SAFEs to fund pre-seed startups - increasingly AI-native ones - across consumer, health, and technology, and pairs its capital with a Consumer Tech Angel Syndicate of operators who co-invest and advise.
Asher Siddiqui
Asher Siddiqui is a General Partner at Sukna Ventures, a Riyadh-based early-stage venture fund backing software and data-infrastructure startups across MENA. He spent a decade running global M&A and corporate venture at Etisalat (around $15bn in deals), then joined 500 Startups as a partner and investment committee member before settling into the GP role at Sukna. He advises a constellation of funds from Palo Alto to Pakistan and splits time between the San Francisco Bay Area, Dubai, and Riyadh.