first-check
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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 Fund Betting That 60% of the Economy Will Soon Be Grown, Not Made
Jennifer Kan spent years at a Nobel laureate's bench teaching enzymes new tricks. Now her fund backs the founders trying to grow the physical economy - chocolate, copper, chemicals, even data - one engineered cell at a time.
Founders, Inc.
Founders, Inc. (f.inc) is a 42,000 sq ft campus, community, and first-check fund at Fort Mason in San Francisco — built for the wildly ambitious founders solving hard problems at the edge of what's possible. Not a traditional VC and not a time-boxed accelerator, it combines pre-seed investment (up to $250K), a dedicated workspace with hardware labs and media studios, daily meals, and an indefinite community of 80+ builders. Founded in 2020 by serial builder Furqan Rydhan, it has backed 100+ companies across AI, AR/VR, Web3, and hardware — including thirdweb, buildspace, LiveKit, and Sync Labs. Featured in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.