AI

First Round Capital

Check: $500K-$3M (seed only)

The seed-stage specialist. Invests earliest and deepest at seed — First Round was one of the firms that pioneered institutional seed investing. Built First Round into a platform that punches well above its check size — extensive founder community (~1000 active founders), expert network (First Round Network), and operational support. First Round Review (their media arm) produces some of the best tactical startup content anywhere — deeply researched guides on hiring, product, management, and go-to-market. Believes the best seed investors win by helping, not just funding. Josh's personal background as a serial entrepreneur (Half.com, Infonautics) gives him deep empathy for founders. He's lived the founding journey and knows what early-stage companies actually need. First Round's community model is a key competitive advantage — founders help each other, creating a network effect that makes the fund more valuable with every new investment. Known for being one of the most founder-friendly VCs — fast to respond, honest about passing, and genuinely helpful when invested.

BoxGroup

Check: $500K-$5M (recently raised a $550M fund in Oct 2025, significantly larger than previous funds)

One of the most active and respected seed investors in NYC. Co-founded TechStars NYC (now Techstars NYC), deeply embedded in the New York startup ecosystem since its earliest days. Known for being highly accessible, fast to decide, and genuinely helpful post-investment. Just raised a $550M fund (Oct 2025) — a massive step up from previous funds, signaling BoxGroup's evolution from small seed fund to significant early-stage player. Not thesis-driven — David reacts to founders and ideas he finds compelling rather than fitting investments into a predefined framework. This flexibility has served him well — his portfolio spans fintech (Plaid), healthcare (Oscar, Ro), consumer (Harry's, Away), and more. The common thread isn't sector but founder quality and early product-market fit signals. David is deeply connected to the NYC startup ecosystem and has helped shape it over the past 15+ years. He's often one of the first calls founders make when starting a company in New York.

Founders Fund

Check: $1M-$100M+ (multi-stage, also invests personally and through Thiel Capital)

The original contrarian VC. 'We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.' Seeks companies that can become category-defining monopolies in markets others ignore. First principles thinking is non-negotiable. The key question: 'What important truth do few people agree with you on?' Backs revolutionary technology, not incremental improvements. The Venn diagram of 'right' and 'different' is where he invests. Thiel's intellectual framework is deeply philosophical — draws from René Girard's mimetic theory (competition is imitation, and imitation destroys value), Leo Strauss, and libertarian economics. Founders Fund's motto: 'We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters' — a critique of Silicon Valley's focus on trivial consumer apps instead of transformative technology. Thiel distinguishes between 'definite optimism' (having a concrete plan to build a better future) and 'indefinite optimism' (vaguely hoping things get better). He champions the former. Created the Thiel Fellowship ($100K grants for young people to drop out of college and build companies) — alumni include Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum), Austin Russell (Luminar Technologies), and others.

Bessemer Venture Partners

Check: $1M-$100M+ (multi-stage, BVP has $3.6B+ under management)

The cloud computing investor. His annual 'State of the Cloud' report is the definitive industry reference for cloud/SaaS metrics. Bessemer's 'Cloud Atlas' benchmarking tool is used by thousands of SaaS companies. The firm publicly lists its 'Anti-Portfolio' — companies they passed on (including Apple, Google, Facebook, Intel) — as a reminder of humility. Data-driven, metrics-obsessed approach to SaaS investing. Has been investing in cloud for over two decades, since before 'cloud' was even a common term. Believes AI will fundamentally transform labor-intensive enterprise processes and that the next generation of cloud companies will be 'AI-native' rather than AI-augmented. BVP created the BVP Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index (EMCLOUD) tracking public cloud companies — a widely referenced industry benchmark. Byron sees vertical SaaS (purpose-built cloud for specific industries) as one of the largest remaining opportunities.

General Catalyst

Check: $1M-$100M+ (multi-stage, GC manages $25B+)

'Responsible innovation' thesis: technology should solve real problems for real people, not create consumer distractions. Strong health and enterprise focus. Author of 'Unscaled' — argues that technology is unscaling the economy, allowing small, nimble companies to compete with large incumbents by renting scale (cloud, AI, platforms) rather than building it. Recently evolved GC into a 'global transformation company' — not just investing but also building internal ventures, acquiring companies, and providing 'transformation services' to portfolio companies and external partners. This is a controversial evolution — GC is now part VC, part PE, part consulting firm. Hemant believes the traditional VC model is outdated and that the next great investment firm needs to do more than write checks. Backs companies that endure and compound over decades. Deep conviction that AI will transform healthcare, reducing costs 10x while improving outcomes. Views technology as a tool for social good, not just wealth creation.

Benchmark

Check: $5M-$15M

Sarah's investing worldview is built on a few interlocking beliefs: (1) The best consumer companies create compounding engagement loops where users do MORE over time, not less. She formalized this into the Hierarchy of Engagement framework: first get users to a 'core action,' then create 'accruing benefits' and 'mounting loss' to retain them, then achieve self-perpetuation through network effects. (2) For marketplaces, aggregate GMV is a vanity metric and a red herring. What matters is 'Happy GMV' — the portion of transactions where both buyer and seller had an experience good enough to drive retention. Happiness, not scale, is your moat. No matter how large an incumbent, they are vulnerable to a new entrant that makes buyers and sellers happier. (3) She prefers founders who start in a 'thimble' of a market — a small, constrained market adjacent to very large ones — and expand outward, rather than going after a big market from day one. (4) In AI, she believes the next wave of consumer AI will be social, not solo. AI avatars, chatbots, and social AI products will win over single-player tools. (5) For B2B AI, she coined 'sell work, not software' — rather than selling a 15% productivity improvement via software, AI startups should sell the completed work itself, delivering a 95% improvement. Incumbents are stuck selling software; startups can leapfrog them. (6) She believes markets have their own physics — 'you can't change those physics, regardless of how great the founder is.'

Khosla Ventures

Check: $500K-$50M+ (across seed fund and main fund)

Explicitly optimizes for ~70% failure rates to back 'black swan' outcomes. Actively seeks opportunities that appear 'crazy' to most of the market. Capital-intensive, science-heavy bets. Believes fusion and superhot geothermal will be primary energy sources by mid-2030s. Bets on the future being radically different from the present. Co-founded Sun Microsystems. Famous for saying 'expertise is the enemy of imagination' — believes experts are often the worst at predicting disruption in their own fields because they're anchored to existing paradigms. Has been one of the most aggressive climate tech investors, putting billions into energy transition companies. Views AI as the most transformative technology in history, predicting it will replace 80% of jobs in 80% of occupations within decades. Runs both a seed fund (for earlier, riskier bets) and a main fund (for larger investments). Willing to lose money on most investments if the winners are transformational.

Polymorphic Capital

Check: No Nataly-specific check size is public. Polymorphic's verified OpenVC-style profile lists firm-level initial bands spanning $250K–$3M, says it can lead, and covers pre-seed through Series B. Treat these as firm guidance rather than Nataly's authority; confirm the relevant partner, current allocation, stage and ownership target after intake.

Nataly's Polymorphic work sits at the application and portfolio-development edge: finding and supporting products that use web3 infrastructure to transform markets beyond crypto-native users, particularly social, payments, finance, data and AI. Her independent research lens maps entire technology stacks and searches for the bottleneck or value-capture layer—such as training data, packaging capacity, safety certification, integration, agent payment rails or the software/hardware split—while distinguishing headline market sizes from more reliable directional signals.

Shorooq Partners

Check: No personal check range is disclosed. Shorooq's equity platform covers the full journey from pre-seed to late-stage growth; Tina's current Venture Partner/adviser listing does not establish independent check authority, so founders should confirm the relevant vehicle and decision process.

Tina looks for high-caliber founders applying differentiated technology to consequential emerging-market problems. Her attributable investment material emphasizes technically credible climate and industrial solutions, strong founder quality, proprietary assets, blue-chip customer validation, and the ability to turn a regional advantage into a scalable category. Her background across banking, private equity, law and insurtech adds a cross-disciplinary diligence lens.

Craft Ventures

Check: $1M-$50M

Pioneered 'Bottom-Up SaaS' — the strategy of applying consumer growth tactics to B2B products. At PayPal he learned viral distribution; at Yammer he proved it could work in the enterprise, growing from zero to $56M ARR in under four years before selling to Microsoft for $1.2B. The core filter is predictable, compounding recurring revenue with strong unit economics. Invented the 'Burn Multiple' metric (net burn / net new ARR) that has become an industry-standard efficiency benchmark. Believes the best SaaS companies combine the growth potential of B2C with the enterprise budgets of B2B. Invested in 20+ unicorns. Operator-investor who thinks in SaaS metrics and has published detailed frameworks (Burn Multiple, Difficulty Ratio, The Cadence, Pipeline Metrics) that founders can reverse-engineer. Recently transitioned from General Partner to Venture Partner at Craft as the firm moved away from seed-stage investing.

Decasonic

Check: No Abdul-specific check range is public. Decasonic's current team page calls him Venture Investor and says founder Paul Hsu is the firm's sole general partner, so this profile does not imply unilateral allocation authority. Confirm current vehicle, instrument, lead appetite and check size directly.

Abdul invests at the application and interface layers where Web3 provides programmable trust, ownership or economic coordination for AI systems. His current work emphasizes physical AI and robotics data, machine identity and payments, consumer AI applications, prediction markets and AI-native financial infrastructure. Decasonic's underwriting frame combines narrative, product-market fit and execution, with adoption and durable network effects as primary evidence.

AppWorks

Check: Not publicly disclosed for Beacon Funds commitments. AppWorks' direct-company strategy publishes US$200K to US$15M per deal from Seed through Series C; that range should not be applied to Jun's venture-fund investments.

Jun uses fund investments as ecosystem infrastructure: back locally connected or specialist managers, exchange market intelligence and diligence, create co-investment and follow-on capital paths, and help portfolio companies enter new Asian markets. In direct opportunities, his writing favors repeat founders with learned resilience, large problems native to Southeast Asia, sound unit economics, profitability and margin discipline, and teams able to adapt when the original model fails.

Gil Capital (Solo GP)

Check: $500K-$10M+ (flexible, has written checks as large as $50M+ in later-stage co-investments)

One of the largest and most successful solo GP funds ever ($1B+). Unusually dense hit rate across breakout companies — has invested in more unicorns than most institutional funds. Invests based on pattern recognition from decades of operating and investing. Moves fast, decides fast — known for making investment decisions in a single meeting. Written 'The High Growth Handbook,' the definitive guide on scaling from Series B to IPO. Being on your cap table is a strong signal to other investors — 'Elad Gil is on the cap table' has become a credibility marker in Silicon Valley. Currently most excited about AI as a platform shift comparable to mobile and cloud. Has shifted from primarily angel investing to writing larger checks ($5-50M+) as his fund has grown. Views the current AI wave as the most important technology shift since the internet.

Lux Capital

Check: $1M-$50M+

'Atoms, not bits.' The biggest opportunities are in companies that manipulate the physical world, not just software. Willing to fund multi-year R&D timelines. Just raised the firm's largest fund ever ($1.5B, Jan 2026, oversubscribed). Invests at the intersection of science and engineering where structural technical advantages create durable moats. Core belief: the 'directional arrow of progress' in science is inevitable — you can bet on where science is going because it only moves forward. Lux looks for 'narrative violations' — moments when consensus is wrong and reality is about to prove it. Josh believes the best founders have 'a secret' — proprietary technical insight that others can't see or don't believe. Has been vocal that the defense tech renaissance is just beginning, not a trend.

Shorooq Partners

Check: No standard personal ticket is published. Shorooq describes Nahda as flexible, tailored debt financing for high-growth and established MENA businesses. Public examples include $15M for Abhi and $12.5M for The Box, but those transactions are examples—not a stated minimum, maximum or personal range.

Nathan uses tailored private credit to fill the financing gap left by conservative banks and to help technology companies reach their next growth milestone with less equity dilution. His underwriting lens balances flexible structure and founder needs against lender downside protection, cash-flow visibility, repayment capacity and disciplined risk-adjusted returns. He also sees a cross-border opportunity connecting Korean technology with MENA demand and capital.

Kleiner Perkins

Check: $1M-$50M+

Leads Kleiner Perkins' enterprise practice. Previously at Social Capital where he led the Slack and Figma investments — two of the most product-obsessed enterprise companies ever built. Strong product-first culture: believes the best enterprise companies feel like consumer products. The enterprise should be delightful, not just functional. Mamoon's core insight: enterprise software was historically sold top-down (CIO buys for the company), but the best modern enterprise companies grow bottom-up (individual users love the product, it spreads through the organization, and eventually the company buys an enterprise license). This 'product-led growth' (PLG) pattern defined Slack, Figma, Notion, and many of the best enterprise companies of the last decade. Now at Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon applies this same lens to AI-native enterprise products — looking for AI tools that are so delightful and useful that they spread organically within organizations.

Check: No public check range is stated. AINative says it invests at Seed and Series A in AI-native companies and is active; UNLMTD describes larger Seed–Series A checks but remains in formation. Confirm legal vehicle, close status, available capital, allocation and decision process before relying on either.

Alexander's current thesis is that hypergrowth can be assessed through a conjunction of visible structural factors: aligned macro/meso/micro trends, founder cognitive complexity, plan velocity, coherent co-founder dynamics and a supportive capital climate. AINative narrows this to companies substantially built and operated by AI agents. The methodology is unusually explicit but its performance statistics are self-reported and should be independently verified.

1kx

Check: No Wei-specific check range is published. 1kx raised a $75M fund in 2024 and says it writes first checks across cycles, but neither fact establishes an individual ticket; founders should use the firm's pitch channel for current sizing.

Wei invests in the financial and security infrastructure that lets blockchains and autonomous software reduce the cost of trust without sacrificing safety. His work joins deep cryptography with venture underwriting: trust-minimized horizontal scaling, programmable cryptography and purpose-built hardware, threat-resistant privacy, and external enforcement, provenance and governance for agentic AI.

Lux Capital

Check: Not applicable to Nat's events role. Lux invests across stages, but no personal allocation authority or check size belongs to this profile. Founder financing pitches should go to Lux's investment team.

Nat designs the convening layer around Lux's frontier-science and technology network. Her work brings together founders, researchers, executives, investors, journalists and creative leaders in focused formats such as AI, AI-biology and health-intelligence summits. The operating thesis is that carefully curated, content-rich gatherings create trust, knowledge exchange and useful founder connections. It is a platform thesis, not a personal investment thesis.

Galaxy Ventures

Check: Galaxy Ventures Fund I closed at more than $175M and targets early-stage companies, but no standard personal or firm ticket range is published on the cited pages. No individual signing authority is inferred from Vikram's Investor title.

Vikram studies the infrastructure that lets blockchains support Bitcoin programmability, mass-market stablecoin distribution and autonomous software. His writing moves from BitVM bridge economics to UPI-inspired payments distribution, agent-paid APIs and compute markets. Across these topics, the consistent lens is economic: technical primitives matter when incentives, cost, liquidity and user experience make them viable at scale.

Norrsken Impact Fund

Check: Norrsken VC publicly states €1M–€10M early-stage and growth tickets. It is a firm-level range, not evidence of Beata's personal signing authority.

Beata sources impact-driven technology across the Nordics and France, with declared interests in climate, energy and women's health. Her public 2026 outlook extends that lens to differentiated data for AI, technology-enabled healthcare pathways and space-based infrastructure where physical constraints enable new efficiency, sensing or manufacturing models.

Inception Capital

Check: Inception does not publish a David-specific check range on its live site. A 2026 interview described an $80M platform split between a $50M venture fund and $30M fund-of-funds, but vehicle size is not personal check size. Founders should ask directly about current round, ownership and reserve fit.

David runs a dual strategy: direct early-stage venture investments and backing emerging fund managers, sometimes through management-company or GP stakes. His edge is an East-West network connecting U.S. innovation and institutional capital with Asian adoption, builders and liquidity. He favors globally trained founders, emerging-market financial infrastructure and long-duration themes such as stablecoins, tokenization, automated finance and the intersection of AI and Web3.

Sequoia Capital

Check: $500K-$50M+ (stage dependent)

The defining voice of Sequoia's AI thesis and arguably the most influential AI investor-thinker in Silicon Valley. Co-authors a series of landmark essays with Pat Grady that have become the canonical frameworks for understanding generative AI's evolution. Core conviction: the application layer — not foundation models — is where enduring value accrues. Foundation models are commoditizing rapidly (only five scaled players remain: Microsoft/OpenAI, Amazon/Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI), so the real opportunity is in vertical AI applications that solve end-to-end human problems. Believes we have entered the 'Age of Abundance' where AI makes once-scarce labor available everywhere at near-zero cost, transforming the addressable market from software ($1T) to services ($10T+). In this world, 'taste' — the human judgment to decide what to build and how — becomes the scarcest resource. Her January 2026 essay declares AGI is functionally here in the form of long-horizon agents that can sustain multi-step work, correct errors, and persist toward goals autonomously. Sequoia has deployed roughly $150M into foundation models but over $1.5B into application-layer companies, reflecting a 10:1 bet on applications over infrastructure.

Bessemer Venture Partners

Khosla Ventures

Menlo Park, CA

AUM: $18B

Craft Ventures

San Francisco, CA

AUM: $3B

Sequoia Capital

Menlo Park, CA

AUM: $85B+

General Catalyst

New York, NY

AUM: $25B

Lux Capital

New York, NY

AUM: $5B

First Round Capital

New York, NY

AUM: $1B+

PT1 Ventures

Berlin, Germany / London, United Kingdom

Fortino Capital

Antwerp, Belgium

BoxGroup

New York, NY

AUM: $500M

Kleiner Perkins

Menlo Park, CA

AUM: $10B+

Founders Fund

San Francisco, CA

AUM: $12B

Gil Capital (Solo GP)

Benchmark

San Francisco, CA

AUM: $50B+

Cardumen Capital

Madrid, Spain / Tel Aviv, Israel

Eureka! Venture

Milan, Italy

Freigeist Capital

Bonn, Germany

Blockwall

Frankfurt, Germany / Paris, France

Sigma Capital

Dubai

AUM: $100M

Borderless Capital

Miami

Cadenza

New York / San Francisco, United States

Caladan Ventures

Singapore

Collab+Currency

New York

LongHash Ventures

Singapore

Agesa Emeklilik Teknoloji VCIF

Istanbul

AUM: ₺303M

Bitrue Ventures

Victoria

AUM: $40M

Cicada Capital

Dubai

AUM: $100M+

Danish Chaudhry

London

AUM: $25M

Development ODTÜ TEKNOKENT VCIF (Invest101)

Istanbul

AUM: $11.7M

Entrée Capital

Tel Aviv

AUM: $1.5B

MV Global

Tortola

AUM: $1B

Moon Pursuit Capital

San Francisco

AUM: $30M

Oak Grove Ventures

Singapore

Synergis Capital

Toronto

AUM: $50M

Arok VC

London

AUM: $1.3M

Big Brain Holdings

Los Angeles

Digital Transition Fund

AUM: €400M

Foresight Ventures

Singapore

Gemhead Capital

AUM: $20M

Ghaf Capital Partners

Dubai