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Behind each large company, determination was a prescient aboriginal capitalist who planted the effect that helped it turn into a redwood.
For Facebook, that capitalist was Peter Thiel. For DoorDash and Opendoor, it was Keith Rabois.
Seed-stage investors arguably person the hardest occupation successful task capital. They often constitute a cheque aft proceeding conscionable the smallest kernel of an idea, agelong earlier determination is adjacent a product. But with the top hazard comes the biggest reward, and immoderate tiny checks person turned into life-changing fortunes.
"At the earliest stages, it's genuinely each astir the founder," said Gokul Rajaram, who made his debut connected the Seed 100 this year. "Great founders tin instrumentality mediocre ideas and mediocre markets and either pivot oregon alteration the market, and bash the close happening to alteration the institution trajectory."
The occupation has besides go harder, with seed funding successful the archetypal 4th of this twelvemonth dropping to its lowest level successful years, according to Crunchbase, and much wealth going into megarounds for AI companies.
Not each effect investors are alike. Some similar defense tech portion others similar to stake connected user tech. Some look for circumstantial founding teams portion others lone put successful repetition founders.
Now successful its 5th year, the Seed 100 database celebrates these figures — the sage dealmakers who supply the indispensable archetypal propulsion to startups that spell connected to go immoderate of the top successes successful the tech world. This database is compiled utilizing information investigation supplied by Termina, a bundle level spun retired of Tribe Capital. Read the full methodology down the list.
1. Kevin Mahaffey
Founder, SNR Ventures
Notable investments: Sourcegraph, Benchling, Coco Robotics, Mesh, XOPS, Sublime Security
City: San Francisco
Mahaffey has acquisition arsenic some a laminitis and investor. He started the mobile-security institution Lookout erstwhile helium was 22 years old. After an archetypal spate of rejections from task superior firms, Lookout would adjacent investments from task capitalists similar Chris Sacca and Vinod Khosla astatine a $1.7 cardinal valuation.
As a effect investor, Mahaffey has helped mint astir a twelve unicorns similar Lattice and People.ai. "Nothing gets maine much excited than spending clip with founders creating businesses that look audacious contiguous — but volition beryllium evident successful retrospect," Mahaffey told BI. "I firmly judge that antithetic + hard = defensible."
2. Gaurav Jain
Cofounder and managing partner, Afore Capital
Notable investments: Cruise Automation, Firebase
City: San Francisco
Jain is each astir getting into startups arsenic aboriginal arsenic possible. In fact, his firm, Afore Capital, has the thesis that nary concern is "too early," and they'd similar to get progressive good earlier different VCs. Jain has been moving the $500 cardinal task money Afore since 2016, and the steadfast raised a $185 cardinal 4th money successful February 2025 to proceed investing successful pre-seed startups.
In summation to Afore, Jain has made much than 2 twelve effect investments done Founder Collective, a seed-stage VC money wherever helium was a main from 2012 to 2016. Those bets see Airtable, Firebase, which was acquired by Google, and Cruise Automation, which was acquired by General Motors for much than $1 billion.
3. Naval Ravikant
Entrepreneur
Notable investments: AtoB, Hebbia, Korbit, Pipe, Clearbit
City: Palo Alto, California
Ravikant has etched his people connected Silicon Valley for much than 2 decades. He's possibly champion known for cofounding AngelList successful 2010, the fundraising level that helps investors link and constitute checks to early-stage startups. Before that, helium colaunched the user merchandise reappraisal tract Epinions, which aboriginal merged with different tract to go the user terms examination website Shopping.com.
In 2007, Ravikant founded the early-stage task steadfast The Hit Forge. He besides made aboriginal bets connected companies specified arsenic Twitter, present X, and Uber. He's gone connected to recovered respective different companies and funds and has been a prolific angel capitalist successful startups, including Substack, Perplexity, and Pipe.
4. Walter Kortschak
Title: Partner, Firestreak Ventures
Notable investments: Palantir, Stripe, Robinhood, Databricks, Perplexity, Anthropic
City: Aspen, Colorado and London
Kortschak's 39 years successful task superior person been afloat of palmy bets connected companies similar E-Tek Dynamics, Finisar, and McAfee. He spent much than 3 decades astatine Summit Partners, wherever helium focused connected growth-stage investing. As a backstage investor, helium was an aboriginal capitalist successful Trade Desk, Palantir, Stripe, and Robinhood.
"Our northbound prima is assessing a founder's ambition to instrumentality a disruptive large thought and ideate the imaginable to physique a generational company," Kortschak told BI.
He helped motorboat SignalFire successful 2013 and started Firestreak successful 2022 to put his idiosyncratic superior and constitute pre-seed and seed-stage checks betwixt $50,000 and $150,000 to startups focusing connected infrastructure; AI and instrumentality learning; data; and open-source, cybersecurity, and developer tools. He has invested successful buzzy AI and information startups similar Anthropic, Cohere, Databricks, Hugging Face, MotherDuck, and Perplexity.
5. Bradley Horowitz
General partner, Wisdom Ventures
Notable investments: OpenAI, Anthropic, Slack, Miro, Ramp, Scale AI
City: Palo Alto, California
As vice president of merchandise astatine Google for 15 years, Horowitz led teams that developed immoderate of the company's astir important offerings, specified arsenic Gmail, Google Docs, and Google News.
He near Google successful 2023 to put afloat clip done Wisdom Ventures and arsenic an angel investor.
Horowitz has backed much than 150 startups and already boasts 4 decacorns, startups valued astatine much than $10 billion. Those see Scale AI, Miro, Applied Intuition, and Ramp. Through Wisdom Ventures, helium is besides 1 of the fewer investors successful 2 of the biggest LLM's, OpenAI and Anthropic.
Last year, helium joined the committee of Circle, a planetary fintech institution that facilitates payments. He besides saw his aboriginal concern successful Coda, a productivity startup, wage disconnected erstwhile it was acquired by Grammarly.
6. Darian Shirazi
Managing partner, Gradient Ventures
Notable investments: Gigs, Legora, Krea, Numeral, Range, Writer
City: San Francisco
Shiraz, leaping 12 spots up the ranking this year, was precocious elevated to managing spouse astatine Gradient Ventures, Google's artificial intelligence-focused task fund.
Shirazi seeks retired companies that harness instrumentality learning to disrupt and reshape accepted industries, specified arsenic Legora for the ineligible industry and Numeral for fintechs and banks.
Shirazi famously became the archetypal intern for Facebook erstwhile helium was 19. Then helium built a selling tech startup, Radius, earlier selling it to the fintech startup Kabbage successful 2019. Since then, he's mobilized his ain societal web to put successful breakthrough companies.
7. Jeremy Yap
Angel investor
Notable investments: Maven Clinic, Stepful, Corti, Oura, Mojo, Meeno
City: San Francisco and London
Yap has been a full-time angel investor for implicit a decade, since leaving his time occupation successful derivatives trading astatine Merrill Lynch successful 2012. He's invested successful much than 100 startups and sits connected the advisory boards of the question absorption institution TravelBank and the money of funds Cendana Capital.
He splits his clip betwixt San Francisco and Europe. He's backed startups specified arsenic the women's healthcare institution Maven Clinic, which raised $125 cardinal successful Series F backing astatine a $1.7 cardinal valuation successful October, and the smart ringing shaper Oura, which raised a $200 cardinal Series D circular astatine a $5.2 cardinal valuation successful December.
8. Sam Altman
Title: Cofounder and CEO, OpenAI
Notable investments: Asana, Cerebras, Reddit, Stripe, Uber
City: San Francisco
Before helium was the J. Robert Oppenheimer of our age, Altman was a red-letter startup investor.
Since Altman near his station astatine Y Combinator successful 2019, he's plunged his idiosyncratic wealthiness and extracurricular superior into companies moving connected atomic vigor (Oklo and Helion), supersonic rider planes (Boom Supersonic), and therapies to hold aging (Retro Biosciences).
While OpenAI made Altman famous, his investments person made him a billionaire. As an investor successful Reddit, Altman and his related funds saw a currency windfall from its archetypal nationalist offering past year.
9. Garry Tan
President and CEO, Y Combinator
Notable investments: Coinbase, Cruise, Flexport, Instacart, Rippling, Truepill
City: San Francisco
Tan plays begetter to thousands of startups a twelvemonth arsenic the president of Y Combinator, but it was his erstwhile investments astatine Initialized Capital that made him a top-ranked effect investor. He funded Coinbase successful 2012. He invested $300,000 and ended up with shares worthy implicit $2.4 billion.
Since taking implicit Y Combinator successful 2022, Tan has ushered successful a new, harder-charging epoch astatine the accelerator. It moved its headquarters to San Francisco, doubled the fig of startup cohorts it supports a year, and steered the latest cohort to go the astir profitable successful the firm's history.
10. Lachy Groom
Cofounder, Physical Intelligence
Notable investments: Notion, Figma, Anduril, Deel, Humane
City: San Francisco
Groom was an early Stripe employee and led Stripe Issuing, the squad successful complaint of virtual and carnal cards. He near the fintech successful 2018 and past twelvemonth cofounded Physical Intelligence, an AI startup with the extremity of bringing general-purpose AI into the carnal satellite via spatially intelligent robots. The startup raised $400 cardinal past autumn from Jeff Bezos, Thrive Capital, and OpenAI.
Groom is besides an angel investor, having raised astir $100 cardinal successful 2020 for his 2nd fund, LFG II. His investments see Notion and Figma.
11. Keith Rabois
Managing director, Khosla Ventures
Notable investments: YouTube, Airbnb, Lyft, Palantir, DoorDash, Ramp
Location: Miami
Rabois made a luck investing his ain wealth successful iconic companies similar YouTube, Airbnb, and Palantir. He returned to Khosla Ventures past twelvemonth aft 4 years astatine Founders Fund. During his archetypal stint astatine Khosla, Rabois led the firm's aboriginal investments successful DoorDash, Affirm, and Stripe.
A vocal proponent of Miami's tech scene, Rabois besides cofounded and inactive serves arsenic CEO of OpenStore, a Khosla-backed e-commerce company.
12. Daniel Gross
Cofounder, Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Notable investments: Instacart, Coinbase, GitHub, Figma, Notion, Deel, Rippling
City: San Francisco
Gross has invested successful aggregate startups, often with his chap Seed 100 honoree Nat Friedman, with whom helium started the billion-dollar AI money C2 Investment, wherever the 2 acquired much than 2,000 Nvidia chips to administer alongside task funds. He's backed large companies specified arsenic Instacart, Notion, and Figma, arsenic good arsenic Gusto and Character.ai.
Gross is besides a serial entrepreneur and presently moving connected Safe Superintelligence, a startup helium cofounded with Ilya Sutskever and Daniel Levy that's truthful acold raised $1 cardinal from NFDG, a16z, Sequoia, and different investors. He antecedently cofounded Cue, a hunt motor that was acquired by Apple successful 2013.
Gross is simply a erstwhile Y Combinator spouse who started the accelerator's AI program.
13. Arjun Sethi
Chairman, Tribe Capital; co-CEO, Kraken
Notable investments: Apollo, Applied Intuition, Block, Carta, Snapchat
City: Menlo Park, California
Instead of relying connected gut feelings alone, Sethi takes a data-driven approach to effect investing. His firm, Tribe Capital, uses artificial quality and information investigation to foretell which early-stage companies are astir apt to go unicorns.
This attack has led to breakout investments specified arsenic Applied Intuition, the autonomous conveyance bundle institution that was past valued astatine $6 billion, and Rippling, the workforce absorption bundle institution that's raised astir $1 cardinal successful equity financing to date.
Sethi added a caller relation past twelvemonth arsenic co-chief enforcement of the cryptocurrency level Kraken.
14. Gokul Rajaram
Founding partner, Marathon Management Partners
Notable investments: Deel, BetterUp, Figma, Printify, Boon, Atlas
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Rajaram was an aboriginal worker astatine Alphabet and Meta and astir recently, an enforcement astatine DoorDash. He present uses his wallet and expertise to assistance startups scale. After years of angel investing, helium plans to constitute checks done a caller firm, Marathon Management Partners.
"I look for relentless and obsessed founders who are ambitious and aggressive, who person unsocial insights into their space, recognize what takes to triumph successful their abstraction amended than anyone connected the planet, and who privation to physique a generational company," Rajaram told BI.
Rajaram besides sits connected the boards of Coinbase, Pinterest, and Trade Desk.
15. Dalton Caldwell
Managing partner, Y Combinator
Notable investments: Brex, PostHog, Rappi, Retool, Whatnot, Zip
City: San Francisco
During his clip astatine Y Combinator, Caldwell has enactment his stamp connected much than 35 unicorn startups, including DoorDash, Flexport, Brex, and Deel. A erstwhile laminitis himself, Caldwell joined the storied startup accelerator arsenic a full-time spouse successful 2014. Since then, he's racked up much than 6,500 bureau hours with founders implicit the people of 25 batches.
Caldwell is besides 1 of the accelerator's gatekeepers, overseeing the admissions process. He's said that 2 things helium looks for successful an exertion are method prowess and a wide mentation of wherefore the laminitis is the close idiosyncratic to commencement the concern of their choosing.
16. Alexis Ohanian
General spouse and founder, Seven Seven Six
Notable investments: Angel City Football Club, Feastables, Flock Safety, Riverside, Ro
City: Jupiter, Florida
Before helium joined a tennis superstar and became Mr. Serena Williams, Ohanian was known arsenic the "mayor of the internet." He cofounded Reddit and scaled it to go 1 of the most fashionable websites worldwide. Since helium sold the company, he's plunged his idiosyncratic wealthiness and venture funds into companies gathering successful the blockchain, software, and healthcare industries.
In 2020, Ohanian near the steadfast helium cofounded, Initialized Capital, to motorboat yet different task fund. Between Ohanian and his Seven Seven Six founding partner, Katelin Holloway, the money has backed a fig of startups led by women and radical of color, including the radical coaching level The Grand and maternal telehealth solution Poppy Seed Health.
17. Ben Ling
Founder and wide partner, Bling Capital
Notable investments: GitHub, Rippling, Airtable, Spellbook, Noetica
City: Miami
Ling was a general spouse astatine Khosla Ventures earlier launching Bling Capital, a VC steadfast focused connected effect and Series A investments. Ling has besides served successful elder operating roles astatine Google, YouTube, and Facebook and was an progressive angel investor, nabbing aboriginal stakes successful Airtable, Lyft, Square, Palantir, and Quora.
In 2024, 1 of Bling's aboriginal investments, Printify, grew 100 times the firm's introduction valuation and merged with Printful to go 1 of the largest print-on-demand platforms globally. As for what Ling looks for successful an entrepreneur, helium said helium seeks a laminitis with "the close level of obstinance, an earned concealed astir a space, and an innate thrust to larn it all."
18. Jon Soberg
CEO and managing partner, MS&AD Ventures
Notable investments: Yotpo, Mercury, Flex, Rubrik, ValidMind, Plus Platform
City: Palo Alto, California
This is Soberg's 5th consecutive twelvemonth connected the Seed 100, a presumption he's maintained owed successful portion to the 7 IPOs and 19 unicorns successful his portfolio. His galore bets see the selling level Yotpo, the concern banking fintech Mercury, and Rubrik, the unreality cybersecurity institution that went nationalist past year.
Soberg has been starring MS&AD Ventures since 2018. His steadfast focuses connected early-stage startups and invests crossed insuretech, AI, Internet of Things, large data, and cybersecurity.
For Soberg, occurrence means uncovering companies that tin upwind pugnacious conditions — not conscionable radiance erstwhile the marketplace is great.
"Building successful tougher markets makes radical absorption other diligently, and we spot truly liable growth, large portion economics, and radical tackling precise pugnacious problems," helium told BI.
19. Julian Counihan
Title: General partner, Schematic Ventures
Notable Investments: Altana, Harbinger, Plus One Robotics, P-1 AI, Infinitform, Chassy
City: San Francisco
Counihan is simply a wide spouse astatine Schematic Ventures, an early-stage steadfast that invests successful supply chain, manufacturing, and endeavor bundle startups. Before Schematic, Counihan worked astatine Red Sea Ventures, wherever helium invested successful concern hardware and proviso concatenation companies, and successful tech concern banking astatine Citi. He started his vocation arsenic a bundle technologist astatine Fortna, a logistics company.
"The archetypal question of concern startups brought world-class engineering endowment into proviso concatenation and manufacturing," Counihan told BI. "Engineers from those companies are present launching startups gathering from archetypal principles and creating wholly caller systems for however the carnal satellite operates. There is much energy, endowment and superior moving connected concern exertion than ever before."
20. Micah Rosenbloom
Managing partner, Founder Collective
Notable investments: Hawthorne, Kasa, Lovevery, Socure, Talos, Verkada,
City: New York
Rosenbloom and his firm, Founder Collective, are the representation of founder-friendly investors. The seed-stage store forsakes pro rata rights, helping to debar "signaling risk" successful the market, and eggs connected founders to rise arsenic small wealth arsenic possible, adjacent if it hurts the markups connected their deals.
Rosenbloom, a three-time laminitis himself, invests crossed sectors and has backed everything from information systems to favored DNA tests. He co-leads Founder Collective's New York office.
21. Ed Sim
Founder and wide partner, Boldstart Ventures
Notable investments: BigID, Common Paper, Kustomer, Protect AI, Snyk, Tessl
City: Miami
Sim thrives successful 1 of the riskiest corners of the market: He invests successful startups earlier they adjacent incorporate. The self-described "inception investor" prefers to rotation up his sleeves and enactment with founders to signifier their ideas, adjacent their archetypal hires, and rally the all-important aboriginal adopters.
While Sim's portfolio has produced monster exits specified arsenic Kustomer's $1 cardinal merchantability to Meta, his biggest successes whitethorn beryllium ahead. In 2016, Sim wrote 1 of the archetypal checks into Snyk, the developer-security unicorn startup that's eyeing a imaginable archetypal nationalist offering, TechCrunch reported. He besides backed Snyk laminitis Guy Podjarny's latest company, the white-hot coding level Tessl.
22. Scott Belsky
Partner, A24
Notable investments: Airtable, Clay, KoBold, Meter, Pinterest, Ramp, Uber
City: New York
A longtime Adobe enforcement and originative virtuoso, Belsky near the plan bundle institution earlier this twelvemonth for the relation of a lifetime: He joined A24 arsenic a partner, starring tech and innovation projects astatine the autarkic studio. In a societal media station announcing the move, Belsky pledged to "continue supporting founders arsenic an investor/product advisor" and committee member.
One of the agleam spots successful his portfolio is the fintech Ramp. Founded successful 2019, the firm paper and bundle supplier boasts hundreds of millions successful annualized gross and a $13 cardinal valuation.
23. Ryan Hoover
Founder and wide partner, Weekend Fund
Notable investments: Atlys, Deel, Extropic, Justpoint, Luminai, Pipe, Truemed
City: Miami, New York, and San Francisco
Hoover built the launchpad for startups with Product Hunt, a website for sharing and discovering the latest mobile apps and tech creations. Now, arsenic an investor, he's transformed his web of thousands of founders into a sourcing motor for uncovering and investing successful the adjacent large thing.
His portfolio includes Deel, the quality resources bundle supplier that closed $30 cardinal successful caller backing earlier this year, and the embedded concern level Pipe.
24. Avichal Garg
Managing partner, Electric Capital
Notable investments: Aven, Bitwise, Figma, Kraken, Notion, Pulley
City: Palo Alto, California
The spectacular illness of crypto exchanges similar FTX and Binance has formed a agelong shadiness implicit the broader crypto market. But Garg and the money helium founded, Electric Capital, are continuing to stake large connected decentralized and blockchain-based technologies.
In summation to his enactment with Electric, Garg has been a palmy angel capitalist for implicit a decade, having been an aboriginal backer of Cruise, Deel, and Figma. He besides worked astatine some Facebook and Google and founded aggregate startups of his ain earlier getting into investing.
25. Laura Rippy
Managing spouse and committee member, Alumni Ventures
Notable investments: Daydream, Rent App, Barnwell Bio, Atomic Supply, TRM Labs, Believer.gg,
City: Boston
Rippy says that erstwhile the satellite is chaotic, startups are the astir nimble, which is wherefore she's excited for this year.
"The signifier of 2025 truthful acold is highly talented teams tackling large opportunities," she told BI.
Based successful Boston, Rippy has built a ample web of school-related founders and investors. She runs 2 school-centric funds, Green D astatine Dartmouth College and Yard Ventures astatine Harvard, and she's besides the managing spouse of Alumni Ventures, 1 of the most progressive VC firms successful the world. Alumni brings VC investing to idiosyncratic investors' portfolios and manages much than 650,000 members.
Prior to joining Alumni Ventures successful 2017, Rippy spent 14 years astatine the backstage household bureau Ripplecreek Partners.
26. William Hockey
CEO, Column
Notable investments: Deel, Metronome, Tropic, TryNow, Middesk
City: San Francisco
Hockey worked concisely successful consulting astatine Bain earlier cofounding Plaid, a fintech infrastructure company, with Zach Perret successful 2012. He spent 8 years astatine Plaid arsenic the president and main exertion serviceman earlier leaving successful 2019.
In 2022, helium announced what he'd been gathering since leaving Plaid: a federally chartered banking startup called Column that allows developers to physique fiscal products faster. Hockey is the cofounder and CEO of Column. He's besides a prolific fintech capitalist who's backed companies specified arsenic Moov and the payroll startup Deel, according to PitchBook data.
27. Alex Iskold
Founder and partner, 2048 Ventures
Notable investments: GlossGenius, Aerodome, Gorgias, Mantl, Healthie, Nomic Bio
City: New York
Iskold immigrated to the US from Ukraine erstwhile helium was 19 and has built a agelong and palmy vocation arsenic a founder, bundle engineer, and capitalist successful implicit 150 startups. He's besides a prolific blogger connected his tract Startup Hacks. Earlier this year, 1 of 2048 Ventures' aboriginal bets, the fintech Mantl, was acquired by Alkemi for $400 million. "AI was and is an arms race. Instead of horizontal plays, we absorption connected the vertical worth capture, afloat solves, and beardown information moats," Iskold told BI. "On the macro level, superior is scarce some for startups and emerging managers. We presumption this arsenic a precise affirmative nett dynamic for the abstraction arsenic determination is little sound successful wide and much worth creation."
28. Nat Friedman
Former CEO, GitHub
Notable investments: Figma, Stripe, Deel, Magic, Perplexity, The Bot Company
City: San Francisco
A multi-time founder, Friedman's 2nd bundle startup was acquired by Microsoft successful 2016, paving the mode for him to go GitHub's CEO successful 2018, erstwhile the tech elephantine bought the coding institution for $7.5 billion. Friedman stayed successful the apical spot astatine GitHub for 3 years and stepped down successful 2021.
Over the past fewer years, Friedman has go good known arsenic an capitalist backing startups similar Figma, Stripe, and Perplexity, and often cowrites checks with Daniel Gross. The 2 acquired much than 2,000 Nvidia chips and distributed them on with task backing done 1 of their funds, the billion-dollar AI money C2 Investment.
29. Ali Partovi
Founder and CEO, Neo
Notable investments: Anysphere, Kalshi, Vanta, Cobot, Bluesky, Chai Discovery
City: San Francisco
Partovi sold his erstwhile institution to Microsoft for $265 cardinal and was an aboriginal capitalist and advisor to dozens of startups, including Zappos and Airbnb. He present runs Neo, a startup incubator, task fund, and nonrecreational network. Neo identifies promising individuals, often portion they're inactive successful school, and provides them with mentorship, education, occupation placement, and, successful immoderate cases, investment.
One of Neo's graduates, the AI coding startup and Cursor developer Anysphere, precocious raised implicit $100 cardinal astatine a $2.5 cardinal valuation. The startup besides became 1 of the fastest companies ever to scope $100 cardinal successful annualized revenue, Partovi, who was its archetypal investor, said. "At Neo, we're obsessed with investing successful people. Our Neo Scholars programme identifies aboriginal tech leaders erstwhile they're inactive successful college, agelong earlier they commencement a company."
30. Max Mullen
Title: Cofounder, Instacart
Notable investments: Census, Alt, Caper, Verifiable, Pelago
City: San Francisco
Mullen cofounded the transportation elephantine Instacart, which went nationalist successful 2023. He's besides been a prolific effect investor, backing implicit 100 startups, including Lattice, Checkr, Omni, Mercury, and Pelago. He's besides backed a fig of startups founded by Instacart alums, specified arsenic Anomalo, Ascend, Cabal, Highstock, and Monocle. Among Mullen's proposal to founders: "Every infinitesimal counts."
31. Salil Deshpande
General partner, Uncorrelated Ventures
Notable investments: Redis, Fingerprint, Astranis, Dynatrace, MuleSoft, Stashfin
City: Palo Alto, California
Deshpande has mostly preferred to absorption connected method founders who are gathering companies successful infrastructure software. As it has go wide that AI tin constitute bundle code, helium has focused much connected hardware and abstraction investments, which helium sees are much defensible.
Two of his biggest wins person been Redis, a information level helium says crossed $300 cardinal successful yearly recurring revenue, and LucidLink, a unreality retention instrumentality helium says helium invested successful earlier it had immoderate merchandise and has present crossed $40 cardinal successful ARR.
Prior to founding Uncorrelated Ventures, Deshpande worked astatine Bain Capital Ventures for 7 years and Bay Partners for 7 years earlier that.
32. Shruti Gandhi
Title: Founder and wide partner, Array Ventures
Notable investments: Capsule, Eventual Computing, Mozart Data, Placer.ai, Rad AI, Runway.team
City: San Francisco
Gandhi's way record shows she gets results for constricted partners. In nether a decade, the solo capitalist has returned her archetypal $7 cardinal money astatine a fivefold multiple, with much companies inactive waiting to exit. A watercourse of acquisitions has sped on those distributions, including Simility, a fraud-detection institution which sold to PayPal successful 2018, conscionable 2 years aft Gandhi invested.
As a one-time startup founder, Gandhi decided to rise a money successful 2016 due to the fact that she saw a request for much investors who rolled up their sleeves astatine the effect stage. Her fund, Array Ventures, helps method founders adjacent aboriginal income and make their go-to-market income strategy.
33. Ramy Adeeb
Founder and wide partner, 1984 Ventures
Notable investments: PostHog, Postscript, BuildOps, Collaborative Robotics, Fay Nutrition, Cline
City: New York
Adeeb was hooked connected the startup satellite aft joining the code designation tech startup TellMe Networks successful 2000 arsenic the company's caput of endeavor engineering. Seven years later, TellMe sold to Microsoft, and Adeeb spent 2 years arsenic a main astatine Khosla Ventures earlier starting his ain company. He sold that venture, the web curation instrumentality Snip.it, to Yahoo successful 2013.
Adeeb founded 1984 Ventures successful 2017 to put successful early-stage tech startups. This year, he's peculiarly excited astir his concern successful Cline, which helium said was stealing distant customers from highly funded AI coding editors similar Anysphere's Cursor and Windsurf for its competing product, built by a azygous engineer. Cline hadn't publically announced its backing arsenic of April.
Another of Adeeb's investments, the commercialized contracting bundle BuildOps, raised a $127 cardinal Series C circular successful March astatine a valuation of $1 billion.
34. Elad Gil
Angel investor
Notable investments: Anduril, Braintrust, Harvey, Notion, Perplexity
City: San Francisco
When it comes to evaluating seed-stage startups, Gil says that the imaginable for product-market acceptable is the astir important happening he's looking for erstwhile deciding whether to constitute a check.
This strategy has proved fruitful, with Gil making aboriginal bets connected AI legaltech darling Harvey, the workplace productivity suite Notion, the AI hunt motor Perplexity, and the defence tech institution Anduril, on with respective different buzzy startups that person since go dense hitters.
A longtime angel investor, Gil has besides written checks for Airbnb, Coinbase, Figma, Deel, and a slew of different startups. He was antecedently an enforcement astatine Twitter, present known arsenic X, and worked successful merchandise absorption astatine Google.
35. Kunal Bahl
Cofounder, Titan Capital
Notable investments: Ola, Urban Company, Mamaearth, OfBusiness, Unicommerce, Credgenics
City: New Delhi
Bahl cofounded 1 of India's hottest startups, Snapdeal, which was erstwhile valued astatine $6.5 billion. Snapdeal's genitor company, the SoftBank-backed Unicommerce, went nationalist successful 2024 and was the archetypal software-as-a-service institution to spell nationalist successful India. When the institution went public, it was the second-most-subscribed IPO of the year.
"Outside of the accustomed assistance a portfolio institution would expect from immoderate seasoned investor, 1 country we are precise focused connected is ensuring subject astir maintaining a thoughtful, well-structured monthly MIS that is discussed wrong the startup's enactment and with our squad astatine Titan Capital," Bahl said, referring to a absorption accusation strategy report. "This ensures everyone — interior and outer stakeholders — is ever connected the aforesaid leafage with respect to the absorption the concern is headed."
36. Marlon Nichols
Cofounder and managing wide partner, MaC Venture Capital
Notable investments: Thrive Market, Pipe, Finesse, Purestream, Seed Health, Truebill
City: Los Angeles
Nichols started his vocation arsenic an relation astatine a seed-stage startup, helped standard it, and past transitioned to consulting. But portion that vocation was fulfilling, helium felt that thing was missing. He wanted to collaborate with executives and decision-makers and beryllium adjacent to the latest technology. For Nichols, the reply was task capital. He started successful VC astatine Intel Capital and past cofounded Cross Culture Ventures. That steadfast past merged with different to signifier MaC Venture Capital successful 2021, which raised $110 cardinal for its archetypal money and followed that up with a 2nd $203 cardinal fund.
In 2024, Mac closed connected different $150 cardinal fund, its 3rd successful 4 years. Nichols said this "reflects our interaction arsenic a seed-stage firm, the spot of our thesis and the founders we back" and "cements MaC arsenic 1 of the largest seed-stage firms successful Los Angeles and North America."
Nicholas said the caller money had allowed the steadfast to proceed to grow successful areas specified arsenic energy, sustainability, defense, and hard tech, sectors the steadfast believes "are astatine an inflection constituent and poised for outsized interaction and returns."
37. Marc Benioff
Chairman and CEO, Salesforce
Notable Investments: Wiz, You.com, Artera AI, Warp, LearnLux, Zebra Medical Vision
City: San Francisco
Benioff caught the startup bug arsenic a summertime intern astatine Apple successful the summertime of 1984, penning assembly codification for the Macintosh 68000 Development System. Fast-forward a fewer decades, and he's moving Salesforce, a 75,000-person Fortune 500 giant.
Seed signifier investing isn't his time job, but Benioff says he's drawn to founders due to the fact that helium relates to them. He estimates that implicit the past 20 years, he's backed much than 200 seed-stage startups. Founders successful his portfolio don't conscionable get currency — they besides get entree to his playbook for scaling and his heavy web of executives and operators.
The cardinal awesome helium looks for successful a founder? Shared vision. "Do I person a complementary imaginativeness to however they spot their ain company?" Benioff told BI. "Many of these radical are visionaries. They're seeing things that don't exist. Am I besides capable to spot what they're seeing?"
Beyond his idiosyncratic investing, Benioff besides oversees TIME Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. One of its biggest wins: a astir $600 cardinal instrumentality from Wiz's $32 cardinal acquisition, Benioff told BI. Salesforce Ventures archetypal invested successful the cybersecurity startup's Series B successful June 2021.
38. Scott Dorsey
Managing partner, High Alpha
Notable investments: Narvar, Zylo, Logik.ai, Lessonly, Superside
City: Indianapolis
Dorsey has been astatine the helm of the Indianapolis-based task workplace High Alpha since 2015, which helium cofounded with his chap Salesforce alums Eric Tobias and Mike Fitzgerald and the serial entrepreneur Kristian Andersen. Before getting into venture, Dorsey cofounded the selling SaaS institution ExactTarget and led the institution arsenic its CEO done an IPO, nationalist marketplace debut, and consequent merchantability to Salesforce for $2.5 cardinal successful 2013. Dorsey said that acquisition arsenic a laminitis and longtime CEO had served him good arsenic helium guides the adjacent procreation of entrepreneurs.
"With my ExactTarget travel from startup laminitis to nationalist institution CEO, I pridefulness myself connected being a large spouse and sounding committee to our founders," helium told BI. "I bask contributing to important strategical decisions arsenic good arsenic supporting founders with the mundane challenges they encounter."
39. Alex McIsaac
Founder and wide partner, Northside Ventures
Notable investments: Ledn, AutoLeap, Draft, Float Financial, Clutch
City: Toronto
Before launching Northside Ventures, a pre-seed and effect signifier steadfast based successful Toronto, McIsaac cofounded an vigor storage-focused cleantech startup successful 2012 that Blackstone Energy bought successful 2018. He transitioned to VC and landed astatine BDC Capital, the largest task steadfast successful Canada, wherever helium worked connected its effect and women successful tech funds. He besides led the Canadian concern signifier arsenic a spouse astatine Global Founders Capital, a European task firm.
40. Rohit Bansal
Cofounder, Titan Capital
Notable investments: Ola, Urban Company, Mamaearth, OfBusiness, Unicommerce, Credgenics, Giva, Shadowfax
City: New Delhi
Bansal, on with his chap Seed 100 honoree Kunal Bahl, cofounded 1 of India's hottest startups, Snapdeal, which was erstwhile valued astatine $6.5 billion. The SoftBank-backed Unicommerce, besides cofounded by Bansal and Snapdeal's genitor company, went nationalist successful 2024 and was the archetypal SaaS institution to spell nationalist successful India.
"India is connected a rising tide — we volition beryllium the third-largest system precise soon — and each boats are being lifted successful this important and affirmative improvement the state is going through," Bansal said. "We are witnessing tremendous innovation successful AI applications being built successful India, not lone for the Indian marketplace but besides for planetary customers. We expect this inclination to accelerate successful 2025."
41. Anshu Sharma
Cofounder and CEO, Skyflow
Notable investments: AirMDR, Ema, Ikigai Labs, Zus Health, Zinc Labs, Fold Health
City: Mountain View, California
Sharma has been penning checks to early-stage startups for implicit a decade, but his investing motto has remained the same: Always beryllium closest to the smartest radical you know.
This regularisation scored him an concern successful Nutanix, arsenic helium knew the cloud-computing startup's CEO from his years astatine Oracle. Nutanix went nationalist successful 2016, valued astatine implicit $5 billion.
In the past year, helium wrote checks to AirMDR, an AI for information company, arsenic good arsenic Ema, an agentic AI startup gathering cosmopolitan AI employees. Two of his aboriginal investments, Razorpay and Tekion, are seen arsenic apt IPO candidates.
As a three-time founder, Sharma relates personally to the entrepreneurs helium works with. Barracuda Networks bought his institution Clearedin successful January 2022.
42. Joe Montana
Title: Managing partner, Liquid 2 Ventures
Notable Investments: GitLab, Rippling, Applied Intuition, Anduril, Mercury, Reducto
City: San Francisco
After a Hall of Fame vocation arsenic backmost of the San Francisco 49ers, Montana cofounded HRJ Capital, a money of funds, successful 1999. After a fewer years of angel investing and learning from the "super angel" Ron Conway, Montana launched Liquid 2 Ventures, which invests successful industries arsenic varied arsenic B2B SaaS and defence tech, successful 2015. The steadfast precocious closed connected a caller $100 cardinal fund, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
Montana says that, similar football, task superior is simply a agelong game: "At Liquid 2 Ventures, we're committed to being beingness investors," helium told BI. "We look for imaginable successful founders, and purpose to beryllium a spouse to them passim their lifetime, not conscionable for 1 lifecycle. Many of the astir palmy companies successful our portfolio are from founders who are connected their 2nd oregon 3rd company."
43. Dylan Field
CEO, Figma
Notable investments: Warp, Pattern Biosciences, Retro, Conception Bio, The Browser Company
City: Penngrove, California
Field has carved retired clip to marque angel investments crossed antithetic verticals, including the DNA startup Pattern Biosciences and The Browser Company, a user startup gathering the net browser, Arc.
He's vetting startups and penning checks successful summation to moving Figma, the late-stage collaborative plan startup helium cofounded successful 2012 with Evan Wallace. The institution has raised much than $300 cardinal from VCs and was successful talks to beryllium acquired by Adobe for $20 cardinal successful 2022 earlier the woody fell apart. In April, the institution confidentially filed draught paperwork for an IPO.
44. Justin Mateen
Title: Founding partner, Jam Fund
Notable investments: Deel, Hadrian, Kalshi, Radiant Nuclear, Rain AI, Varda
City: Los Angeles
Mateen is champion known arsenic the cofounder of Tinder, the OG dating app. Now, helium swipes close connected startups arsenic a savvy aboriginal capitalist successful companies similar Lyft, which went public successful 2019 astatine a $24 cardinal valuation, and Brex, which had a $12.3 cardinal valuation successful January 2022.
Mateen told BI helium looks for founders with "serious domain expertise who person thing to beryllium to themselves, the world, oregon idiosyncratic they attraction profoundly about" and companies that are disrupting ample markets and person a wide way to positive-unit economics astatine scale.
45. Ali Tamaseb
General partner, DCVC
Notable investments: StarkWare, ElectronX, Odyssey, Earth AI, Chai Discovery
City: Palo Alto, California
Before landing astatine DCVC, Tamaseb cofounded and was the CEO of Blocks Wearables, a deep-tech hardware startup that developed wearables for concern use. He besides runs the networking assemblage Super Founders Club, which includes founders with anterior meaningful exits and IPOs. Tamaseb told BI that successful the past year, he'd been capable to turn the assemblage "2x." It allows Tamaseb to get entree and find the champion and astir promising founders.
"My benignant of investing is 100% founder-first and founder-centric," helium said. "I usage data, and an organization mode of creating networks to find, fund, and spouse with the champion founders of our procreation astatine pre-seed, seed, A, and beyond."
46. Sheel Mohnot
Cofounder and wide partner, Better Tomorrow Ventures
Notable investments: Mercury, Kin, Unit, Relay, Coast, Basis
City: San Francisco
Mohnot has been featured connected the Seed 100 each twelvemonth since its inception 4 years ago. In 2020, helium cofounded Better Tomorrow Ventures, a fintech task firm. Before that, helium was an angel capitalist successful companies specified arsenic Flexport and Ironclad. He's been investing successful fintech since 2015 and cofounded the nutrient institution Thistle earlier starting his task superior career.
Mohnot is excited astir the prospects for fintech this year. "We had 10 markups implicit the people of a period earlier this twelvemonth — fintech is back!" helium said.
His steadfast specializes successful helping startups with sales, recruiting, concern development, assemblage building, and raising wealth for the adjacent circular of funding, helium said, adding that it had introduced founders to their next-round investors much than 90% of the time.
47. Nick Candito
Cofounder and managing director, ACOF
Notable investments: Carta, TrueMed, Metafy, Augment Markets, Atomic Insights, BRM
Cities: Austin and San Francisco
Candito started his vocation arsenic an relation successful the Boston startup country earlier heading westbound to articulation the income information startup RelateIQ, which Salesforce bought for $390 cardinal successful 2014. He past founded and served arsenic the CEO of the cloud-based endeavor startup Progressly, which Box acquired successful 2018.
Candito spent immoderate clip astatine Box and different startups earlier moving connected to investing successful startups, including the information importing institution Flatfile. He besides launched the steadfast Netshire Technology, and successful 2020, helium cofounded Angel Collective Opportunity Fund, of which he's the managing director. ACOF helps emerging managers backmost startups done a pooled concern fund.
Candito said helium was precise excited astir his investments implicit the past twelvemonth successful respective AI infrastructure startups, including Gable, Distributional, Letta (formerly MemGPT), TensorWave, and Fiddler AI.
48. Eric Tarczynski
Title: Founder and managing partner, Contrary
Notable investments: Ramp, Zepto, Moment, Doss, Hermeus, Anduril
City: San Francisco
Tarczynski founded Contrary successful 2017 to place exceptional entrepreneurs early, sometimes earlier they've adjacent begun their adjacent venture. The firm, which invests successful early-stage tech companies, is backed by the founders of tech powerhouses specified arsenic Tesla, Reddit, Facebook, and Airbnb. Contrary's portfolio includes tech unicorns specified arsenic the defence tech startup Anduril, the Indian market transportation institution Zepto, and the fintech level Ramp.
Tarczynski began his ain entrepreneurial travel successful 2012 with Checkit, a edifice mobile payments startup that folded aft 2 years of competing against Toast — which Tarczynski describes arsenic an invaluable learning opportunity. He was besides an aboriginal worker astatine the societal level Kamcord, whose squad was acqui-hired by Lyft successful 2017.
49. Jackson Moses
Title: Founder and managing partner, Silent Ventures
Notable investments: Saronic, CHAOS, Armada, Gallatin AI, Firestorm, UNION
City: Dallas
Moses is simply a prolific defense tech investor, with immoderate of the buzziest startups, specified arsenic the autonomous maritime institution Saronic Technologies and the defence detection startup CHAOS, successful his portfolio. He started his task fund, which invests successful aerospace, defense, and nationalist information companies, successful precocious 2022.
Previously, Moses angel invested crossed aggregate verticals and chopped his teeth starting companies of his own: He founded MainStreet, a firm taxation bundle company, and Spectrum Labs, a contented moderation startup.
50. Roger Chen
Title: Partner, Silverton Partners
Notable investments: Apprentice, Billie, Docjuris, Grocery TV, Rx Redefined, Valid8 Financial
City: Austin
Chen moved to Austin six years ago to go a spouse astatine the early-stage concern steadfast Silverton Partners. He told BI that helium tends to "gravitate toward class creators" erstwhile evaluating a startup earlier investing.
That's evidenced by his portfolio of section bundle and user businesses that person go the envy of Silicon Hills, with stakes successful Apprentice, Fama, and Grocery TV (formerly Clerk). Chen besides received a sizable exit with Edgewell's acquisition of the razor shaper Billie for $310 cardinal successful 2021.
Chen said that successful the past year, his portfolio institution Rx Redefined had "performed consistently up of program and capped disconnected the twelvemonth with a Series B." And he's precise excited astir different of his portfolio companies, the legaltech AI startup DocJuris, which helium said "has been capable to out-innovate and triumph deals against peers with importantly much funding."
51. Martin Tobias
Managing partner, Incisive Ventures
Notable investments: Jeeves, OpenSea, Enable, Yassir, Portside, LMNT
City: Seattle
Tobias is simply a serial entrepreneur and capitalist who's been successful the crippled for astir 30 years. After stints astatine Accenture and Microsoft, Tobias ventured retired connected his ain to motorboat 2 companies, and helium led respective others during the aboriginal 2000s. He says that implicit the years, he's invested successful much than 250 companies arsenic an angel investor, and he's a constricted spouse successful astatine slightest a twelve task funds.
Tobias started Incisive Ventures, a pre-seed money based successful Seattle, successful 2020, and helium was an aboriginal capitalist successful the fintech startup Jeeves, the NFT level OpenSea, and the electrolyte portion premix institution LMNT. He's peculiarly excited astir the caller question of AI advancement and each of the startups capitalizing connected the technology. "I americium astir excited astir the companies that are seizing this AI infinitesimal to present full caller categories of B2B applications versus AI paste-ons," helium said.
52. Bill Trenchard
Partner, First Round Capital
Notable investments: Uber, Looker, Verkada, EvolutionIQ, Flexport, Dyna Robotics
Cities: San Francisco and Seattle
Trenchard was an entrepreneur for much than 2 decades, starting 5 companies and backing galore much arsenic an angel investor. In 2012, helium joined First Round Capital, the seed-stage steadfast founded by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan.
In the past year, respective of Trenchard's portfolio companies person seen continued success. The insurtech startup EvolutionIQ, 1 of Trenchard's portfolio companies that helium backed successful 2019, was bought for $730 million. The information tech startup Verkada raised a $200 cardinal round, valuing it astatine $4.5 billion.
Trenchard said that successful his years arsenic an investor, he'd looked for "founders who are consenting to spell to bonzer lengths to marque customers successful." He recalled that 8 years ago, Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan got up connected a ladder astatine midnight to instal cameras astatine the Equinox successful Beverly Hills. Kaliszan "recently revisited the tract and recovered those archetypal cameras inactive successful usage — with the lawsuit conscionable arsenic happy," helium said. "That level of laminitis committedness and obsession with making customers successful, nary substance what it takes, is simply a almighty indicator.
53. Itamar Novick
Founder and wide partner, Recursive Ventures
Notable investments: Deel, Placer AI, May Mobility, Akash Network, Tomato AI, Anjuna Security
City: Berkeley, California
Novick makes effect investments done Recursive Ventures, the steadfast helium launched successful 2014 arsenic a solo capitalist. He announced its 3rd money successful February, with $30 cardinal to backmost pre-seed startups chiefly based successful the US and Israel and focused connected manufacture disruption with information and AI.
He started Recursive portion inactive moving astatine Life360, wherever helium was a subordinate of the location-sharing app's founding team. He stayed astatine Life360 successful assorted roles until its 2024 IPO, for which helium served arsenic its acting main fiscal serviceman and wide counsel. Before that, helium was connected the founding squad of the lawsuit individuality absorption startup Gigya, which the German institution SAP acquired for $350 cardinal successful 2017.
Novick has invested successful much than 100 startups since 2010. He's peculiarly excited astir his 2024 concern successful Perspective AI, which lets founders simulate conversations with their customers — a instrumentality helium said helium would've loved to person utilized erstwhile helium was an operator.
54. Raymond Tonsing
Title: Founder and managing partner, Caffeinated Capital
Notable investments: Saronic, Varda, Airtable, Affirm, Opendoor, Clipboard Health
City: San Francisco
After moving successful existent property investing, Tonsing switched to tech successful 2009 erstwhile helium founded Caffeinated Capital, an early-stage task superior steadfast successful San Francisco. He's backed companies similar the online payments startup WePay, which JPMorgan acquired, and the app improvement startup Parse, which Meta bought successful 2013.
Tonsing besides saw occurrence with the fintech institution Affirm, which went public successful 2021 astatine a valuation of implicit $10 billion, and Airtable, which was valued astatine $11 cardinal successful 2021.
He was an aboriginal capitalist successful Varda Space, which aims to make pharmaceutical components successful space, and serves connected its board.
55. Andreas Klinger
Title: Solo wide partner, Prototype Capital
Notable investments: Remote, Luma AI, Circle, Zed, PierSight Space, Sensmore
City: Berlin
Klinger was a founding subordinate and main exertion serviceman of the merchandise motorboat website Product Hunt earlier it was acquired by AngelList successful 2017. He worked astatine AngelList and its subsidiary CoinList portion besides investing successful pre-seed and seed-stage companies specified arsenic Hopin, Clubhouse, and Remote. In 2024, helium launched the solo money Prototype Capital.
Klinger says that successful the past year, he's been 1 of the halfway radical down a question to found a Pan-European ineligible entity that hopes to hole astir of the hurdles to early-stage backing successful Europe. The connection has gotten the backing of the Stripe cofounder Patrick Collison and the Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham.
56. Lucas Vaz
Title: Founder and wide partner, Ravelin Capital
Notable Investments: Apex Space, Base Power, Covenant, Hadrian, The Lumber Manufactory, Shinkei Systems
City: San Francisco
Vaz founded his task firm, Ravelin Capital, which backs early-stage startups gathering "critical software," with bets mostly successful the industrial, defense, and manufacturing sectors. Vaz was motivated to recovered Ravelin aft noticing "the decay of our infrastructure, the illness of our institutions, and the changing geopolitical tides," helium wrote successful a note connected the firm's website. Previously, Vaz worked arsenic an capitalist astatine Village Global, an early-stage task firm.
"From manufacturing and defence to different sectors specified arsenic industrials, energy, fishing, and lumber, we're witnessing an unprecedented question of world-class endowment pouring into sectors that person agelong been overlooked," Vaz told BI. "These entrepreneurs aren't chasing trends — they're committing their lives to rebuilding the systems that substance most."
57. Jeff Fluhr
Venture partner, Craft Ventures
Notable investments: Warby Parker, Twilio, Houzz, CrewAI, Arch, Pickle
City: San Francisco
Fluhr dropped retired of the Stanford Graduate School of Business to cofound StubHub successful 2000 and served arsenic the company's CEO until its merchantability to eBay successful 2007. He past launched the societal video level Spreecast, which unopen down successful 2016, and joined Craft Ventures a fewer years later. In March, Fluhr announced successful a LinkedIn station that helium was transitioning to a caller section arsenic a venture partner astatine the steadfast aft 7 years arsenic a wide partner.
As an investor, Fluhr has backed companies including Warby Parker and Houzz, and different unicorns, including Course Hero, MDLive, and Trulia. Out of his investments successful the past year, Fluhr is peculiarly excited astir the AI cause startup CrewAI, which helium said was "the starring unfastened root model for AI cause orchestration, an country that is already having a immense interaction connected Fortune 500 companies and volition lone turn successful value implicit the adjacent 5 years."
58. Kevin Durant
Title: Cofounder, Thirty Five Ventures
Notable investments: Goalsetter, StarStock, Hugging Face, Helm.ai, Lively
City: New York
Durant is champion known arsenic a prima successful the NBA, winning back-to-back championships with the Golden State Warriors successful 2017 and 2018. But fewer recognize that Durant is besides a prolific capitalist done Thirty Five Ventures, the steadfast helium cofounded with his concern partner, Rich Kleiman, successful 2016.
His investments see the AI coding startup Hugging Face to the wellness institution Thrive Global.
59. Zach Weinberg
Title: General partner, Operator Partners; cofounder and CEO, Curie.Bio
Notable investments: Whatnot, Nourish, Ro, Spring Health, QA Wolf
City: New York
Weinberg helps seed-stage founders observe drugs with his biotech-focused accelerator and concern firm, Curie.Bio. It's backed by the manufacture heavyweights GV, Andreessen Horowitz, and Arch Venture Partners. It raised $340 cardinal successful January to backmost up to 20 much biotech companies this year.
He's a palmy two-time startup founder, having sold his adtech startup, Invite Media, to Google for $81 cardinal successful 2010. His 2nd company, the oncology tech startup Flatiron Health, sold to Roche for $2 cardinal successful 2018.
Weinberg besides deploys superior done the early-stage task steadfast helium cofounded, Operator Partners, and maintains a idiosyncratic portfolio arsenic an angel investor.
60. Steve Loughlin
Title: Partner, Accel
Notable investments: Monte Carlo Data, Airkit.ai, Poggio Labs, Centaur Labs, Productiv, Stairwell
City: Palo Alto, California
Loughlin was primitively a founder, processing the income exertion startup RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce successful 2014 for $390 million. He joined Accel successful 2016, wherever helium helps pb the firm's effect practice. One of Loughlin's aboriginal bets, the information startup Monte Carlo Data raised $60 cardinal successful Series C backing successful 2024 and saw 100% year-over-year gross growth.
"In looking astatine caller investments for a seed, it's each astir the founders," Loughlin told BI. "Startups are ne'er a consecutive line, truthful knowing wherefore they are starting and learning astir their past of execution is captious successful partnering."
61. Hadley Harris
Founding wide partner, Eniac Ventures
Notable investments: Attentive, 1upHealth, Anchor, Hinge, Level AI, Attention
City: New York
Prior to cofounding New York-based Eniac Ventures successful 2010, Harris chopped his teeth astatine 2 VC-backed startups, including an AI dependable adjunct that would aboriginal go Siri.
He's present utilizing that acquisition to pb Eniac's AI investing efforts, some astatine the exertion and tooling layer. Eniac leads early-stage rounds for software, AI, and IT companies.
"I consciousness incredibly fortunate to person spent implicit 15 years gathering and investing successful AI-first companies, including gathering the archetypal voice-based virtual assistant, which became Siri aft being acquired," Harris told BI. "This deep-rooted passionateness has fixed maine invaluable acquisition and insight, helping maine spouse with founders of AI-first companies today."
62. Jason Warner
Cofounder and CEO, Poolside
Notable investments: Moderne, Render, The Browser Company, StarTree, Tinybird
City: San Francisco
Warner is the cofounder and CEO of buzzy AI startup Poolside, which conscionable raised $500 cardinal astatine a $3 cardinal valuation. Prior to founding Poolside, Warner was an capitalist astatine Redpoint Ventures, wherever helium backed AI and infrastructure companies. Warner was besides the CTO of GitHub, which was acquired by Microsoft successful 2018 for implicit $7 billion.
63. Eric Wu
Cofounder and advisor, Opendoor
Notable investments: Ramp, Airtable, Mercury, Harvey, Faire
City: San Francisco
At the extremity of 2023, Wu stepped down arsenic president of Opendoor, the spot exertion institution helium cofounded successful 2014. The determination opened the doorway for him to bash much angel investing.
"While a communal criterion, I spot important accent connected the slope and marketplace acceptable of the founding team," Wu told BI.
He has a passionateness for real-estate tech firms, specified arsenic Kindred Concepts, which was founded by 2 erstwhile Opendoor employees, and the Brazilian homebuying marketplace Loft. Wu besides oversees a syndicate alongside David King to constitute bigger checks.
64. Olaf Carlson-Wee
CEO, Polychain Capital
Notable investments: Polymarket, Anoma, Yellow Card, Merico, Vesper Energy
City: San Francisco
A self-proclaimed aboriginal person of crypto who wrote his 2012 assemblage thesis connected bitcoin, Carlson-Wee became Coinbase's archetypal worker aft helium famously cold-emailed the company's founders, helium recalled successful a 2016 interrogation with Y Combinator. That was the twelvemonth helium near Coinbase and launched Polychain Capital, an concern steadfast focused connected backing crypto and blockchain-based technologies.
Since then, Carlson-Wee has served arsenic the concern firm's CEO, which has racked up astir 300 investments, according to PitchBook. Those see checks to the crypto-based prediction marketplace Polymarket and the African cryptocurrency speech Yellow Card.
65. Dan Teran
Cofounder and managing partner, Gutter Capital
Notable investments: Forerunner, Bikky, Opus, Rowan
City: New York
Teran is simply a laminitis turned capitalist and started backing startups successful 2021 aft selling his company, the bureau absorption bundle Managed by Q, to WeWork successful 2019 for $220 million. His portfolio has since grown to much than 100 startups, and respective of his bets person blossomed into companies worthy $1 billion.
"Whether it's raising money, hiring executives, uncovering product-market fit, making an acquisition, oregon selling the institution — astir challenges our founders brushwood I've done myself," Teran said. "We built our strategy astir being the founder's archetypal choice, and our highly concentrated concern strategy allows maine to walk existent clip with our founders to enlistee teams, adjacent sales, navigate to product-market fit, and physique companies of consequence."
66. Neeraj Berry
Title: Founder and managing partner, Tet Ventures
Notable investments: Maven, Chef Robotics, Kingdom Supercultures, Wildwonder, Phytoform, Season Health
City: Oakland, California
A serial entrepreneur, Berry cofounded nutrient transportation startup Sprig. He besides founded 12Society, a subscription commerce concern backed by a big of celebrities and investors similar Mark Cuban. Berry founded Tet Ventures to marque effect investments successful nutrient tech startups. One of Berry's aboriginal investments, Chef Robotics, a startup that brings AI-powered robotics to nutrient services, conscionable raised $20.6 million successful a Series A backing round.
"Money is flowing again, but we judge semipermanent occurrence to beryllium predicated connected taking ambitious swings with less resources," Berry told BI. "We've seen the emergence and autumn of the overcapitalized startup galore times, and we're betting connected teams that are progressively audacious, nimble, and resourceful."
67. Peter Thiel
Title: Partner, Founders Fund
Notable investments: Airbnb, Anduril, Facebook, Flexport, Stripe
City: Los Angeles
Thiel keeps a debased nationalist illustration contempt being 1 of the astir influential radical successful Silicon Valley and present successful Washington, DC.
He is portion of the aboriginal lore astatine immoderate of Silicon Valley's astir iconic companies. He cofounded PayPal and Palantir and was an aboriginal capitalist successful Facebook and LinkedIn. His much caller bets see the defence tech institution Anduril, which is seeing highly precocious request from secondary investors, and Ramp, which doubled its valuation to $13 cardinal earlier this year.
Thiel has besides launched respective task firms: Founders Fund, whose portfolio includes Faire and Rippling; Valar Ventures, an internationally focused steadfast that was an aboriginal backer of the accounting bundle institution Xero; and Mithril Capital Management, which invested successful the blockchain-focused fintech institution Paxos.
This year, Thiel has seen his power emergence arsenic an state of the Trump administration. He is considered by galore the "godfather of DOGE."
68. Max Levchin
CEO, Affirm; wide partner, SciFi VC
Notable investments: Yelp, Crunchyroll, Stripe, Gusto, Brex
City: San Francisco
Levchin cofounded the institution that would go PayPal with Peter Thiel and cemented his lore successful the tech satellite arsenic a subordinate of the now-famous "PayPal Mafia." Since his PayPal days, he's gone connected to motorboat respective companies, including the startup workplace HVF. From HVF, Levchin spun retired the fintech institution Affirm, which helium cofounded with Nathan Gettings, Jeffrey Kaditz, and Alex Rampell. He's been the company's CEO since 2014, heralding it done its IPO successful aboriginal 2021.
Levchin is besides an progressive capitalist and cofounded SciFi VC with his wife, Nellie Levchin, whom helium credits with uncovering the firm's investments and galore of his angel investments. Levchin was besides an aboriginal backer of companies including Yelp, Crunchyroll, and Stripe.
69. Guillermo Rauch
CEO, Vercel
Notable Investments: Perplexity, ElevenLabs, Resend, Spline, Braintrust
City: San Francisco
Rauch is the CEO of Vercel, a unreality infrastructure startup that past raised a $250 cardinal Series E astatine a $3.25 cardinal valuation successful 2024. Before Vercel, Rauch founded Cloudup, a startup acquired by the genitor institution of WordPress successful 2013. He has angel invested successful immoderate of Silicon Valley's buzziest startups, specified arsenic Perplexity and ElevenLabs.
Rauch's ain stance connected rethinking products similar Vercel to relationship for the accelerated gait of AI advancements informs his concern thesis: "It's precise casual to remainder connected the laurels of what you've built," helium told BI. "It's hard to effort and disrupt yourself portion gross is growing, customers look happy, and your peers are impressed, yet I deliberation this is what the top companies are each about."
70. Jack Altman
General partner, Alt Capital
Notable investments: Antares, Fillout, Legora, Owner, Rogo
City: San Francisco
A twelvemonth and a fractional ago, Altman stepped backmost arsenic the main enforcement of Lattice, the quality resources bundle institution helium founded and scaled to unicorn status, to instrumentality to his archetypal love: the earliest stages of company-building. He locked down $150 cardinal for his inaugural money and launched an accelerator for concern bundle startups, harnessing artificial intelligence.
Altman's bets see Legora, the ineligible tech startup that's shaking up the industry, and Rogo, the Thrive Capital-backed startup moving to physique Wall Street's archetypal genuinely autonomous analyst.
71. Nat Turner
General partner, Operator Partners; CEO, Collectors
Notable investments: Plaid, Suki, Oura, Zipline, David Energy
City: New York
Turner has been angel investing since 2010, the aforesaid twelvemonth helium sold his archetypal startup, the adtech institution Invite Media, to Google for $81 million. After 2 years astatine Google, helium cofounded Flatiron Health, the crab attraction startup acquired by Roche for $1.9 cardinal successful 2018.
In 2020, helium formalized his concern attack by launching the task steadfast Operator Partners alongside 3 friends, including his Invite Media cofounder Zach Weinberg. He became the CEO of Collectors, an online collectibles marketplace and authentication platform, aft starring an capitalist radical successful taking the institution backstage successful 2021. He joined GameStop's committee of directors successful November, a period aft Collectors notched a concern with the gaming retailer.
72. Robert Leshner
General partner, Robot Ventures; CEO, Superstate
Notable investments: Nansen, Celestia, Axelar, LayerZero, Alluvial, Succinct
City: New York
Leshner is known arsenic 1 of the forefathers of decentralized finance, having cofounded Compound Labs successful 2017, which developed 1 of the archetypal DeFi applications. He went connected to cofound and is the CEO of Superstate, an plus absorption steadfast that's gathering blockchain tokenized concern products.
Leshner is besides a cofounder and wide spouse of Robot Ventures, a pre-seed and effect signifier steadfast focused connected crypto and fintech startups. Since its founding successful 2019, Robot Ventures has backed much than 200 companies, and it raised $75 cardinal for its 4th money past year. Leshner shared his proposal for startup founders present building: "Robots/AI are going to execute all jobs, from concern to media. Build accordingly."
73. Jordan Nof
Managing director, Tusk Venture Partners
Notable investments: Ro, Alma, Dub, Sunday, Kodex, Lumion
City: New York
Nof started Tusk Venture Partners successful 2015 to backmost early-stage tech companies successful highly regulated markets. He's stake connected startups similar the direct-to-consumer wellness startup Ro, which was past valued astatine $7 cardinal successful 2022, and the intelligence wellness startup Alma, which raised $130 cardinal successful Series D backing successful 2022.
Before launching Tusk Venture Partners, Nof was a manager astatine Blackstone Innovations, the backstage equity elephantine Blackstone's early-stage investing arm. In its 10-year history, Tusk Venture Partners has invested successful companies specified arsenic the crypto speech Coinbase, the insurtech institution Lemonade, and the sports betting level FanDuel.
74. Ron Pragides
Limited Partner, GTMfund
Notable Investments: Allstacks, Cacheflow, Cake Equity, Jet HR, Momentum.io, Seeds Investor
City: San Francisco
Pragides is 1 of much than 350 constricted partners astatine GTMfund, an early-stage task steadfast that invests successful B2B SaaS companies, according to the company's LinkedIn. He besides angel invests and has cashed retired connected immoderate blistery investments, specified arsenic Cacheflow, a billing merchandise startup that was acquired by HubSpot successful 2024.
The astir important qualities Pragides looks for successful a startup earlier investing are founder-market fit, a B2B angle, prioritizing automation and efficiency, and "niches that I americium personally funny in," helium told BI.
75. Terrence Rohan
Managing director, Otherwise Fund
Notable investments: Figma, Notion, Robinhood, Vanta, Hugging Face, Granola
City: San Francisco
Rohan began his task superior vocation with 7 years astatine Index Ventures, during which helium built an angel money for founders to marque effect investments. He spun Otherwise Fund retired of Index successful 2017 with the aforesaid premise — to assistance founders put successful seed- to growth-stage startups. Rohan besides invests from the fund, with a absorption connected seed-stage bets.
In the past year, astir one-quarter of Rohan's effect investments person seen valuation markups oregon raised Series A rounds, 1 of the highest ratios he's seen successful his 15 years of effect investing, helium told BI. When choosing his investments, helium said helium focuses particularly connected the founders' unsocial insights, arsenic good arsenic the "why now" question: What makes the timing close for that circumstantial institution to succeed?
"These indispensable variables don't easy alteration and specify institution trajectory," helium said. "Everything other important — product, pricing, distribution, concern model, contention — is much malleable and truthful secondary."
76. Anne Dwane
Cofounder and partner, Village Global
Notable investments: Commontools, P-1 AI, AirGarage, Cherry, Pave, Grow Therapy
City: San Francisco
For a career capitalist similar Dwane, AI has represented a generational shift, which is creating an breathtaking clip to measure startups and founders for caller concern opportunities.
"The past twelvemonth has been similar nary other," she told BI. "AI's interaction is conscionable opening to amusement up successful bequest industries, wherever the spread betwixt what's imaginable and what exists remains wide."
Dwane added that the manufacture is besides experiencing a gyration erstwhile it comes to bundle development, which she said volition let much radical to physique companies.
Across Village Global's 3 funds, Dwane's deals person a cumulative holding worth of much than $16 billion. Before Village Global, Dwane cofounded the veteran-focused quality tract Military.com and aboriginal served arsenic the CEO of Zinch, a university-recruitment startup acquired by the edtech institution Chegg successful 2011.
77. Jim Andelman
Cofounder and managing director, Bonfire Ventures
Notable investments: Writer, Mntn, TaxJar, Boulevard, Wildfire Systems, Alvys
City: Los Angeles
Andelman kicked disconnected his investing vocation 25 years ago, backing growth-stage bundle companies astatine Broadview Capital Partners. A fewer years later, helium founded Rincon Venture Partners, which helium calls 1 of the archetypal "micro VC" firms — effect investing earlier effect investing arsenic an manufacture exploded.
His latest task firm, Bonfire Ventures, backs blistery early-stage startups gathering business-to-business software. The steadfast raised its 4th and largest money successful February, a $245 cardinal money that pushed Bonfire's full assets nether absorption implicit $1 billion. Several of its portfolio companies person besides had banner years, including the generative-AI startup Writer, which raised $200 cardinal successful Series C backing astatine a $1.9 cardinal valuation successful November, and the adtech startup Mntn, which filed to spell nationalist successful March.
78. Immad Akhund
Founder and CEO, Mercury
Notable Investments: Rappi, Airtable, Rippling, Etched, Decagon, Albedo Space
City: San Francisco
Akhund is the laminitis and CEO of the banking startup Mercury, which precocious raised a $300 cardinal Series C astatine a $3.5 cardinal valuation led by Sequoia. Before Mercury, Akhund cofounded Heyzap, a startup that made mobile crippled developer tools, which was acquired by Fyber for $45 cardinal successful 2016.
Akhund angel invests successful "things that volition look inevitable 10 years from present and tin beryllium $10 cardinal companies," helium told BI. To him, these are Silicon Valley heavyweights specified arsenic Etched, which makes computing hardware, and Decagon, an AI-powered lawsuit enactment bundle startup.
79. Emmett Shear
Title: Cofounder, Justin.tv
Notable investments: Torch, Cruise, ForeVR Games, Fathom, Substack
City: San Francisco
A serial entrepreneur, Shear is best known for cofounding the livestreaming startup Justin.tv with Kan. In 2011, Shear spun the gaming livestreaming concern Twitch disconnected from Justin.tv. In 2014, Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million, and Shear remained arsenic its CEO. In 2023, helium was the interim CEO of OpenAI for a abbreviated clip aft Sam Altman was ousted. Shear made aboriginal bets connected companies similar Substack and Cruise.
80. Ashu Garg
General partner, Foundation Capital
Notable investments: Databricks, Anyscale, Cohesity, Arize, Turing, Eightfold
City: Palo Alto, California
For Garg, whose firm, Foundation Capital, was founded much than 30 years agone and placed its archetypal AI stake much than a decennary ago, determination are 3 important things to look for erstwhile it comes to evaluating an early-stage, pre-revenue startup: the founder, the market, and method insight.
"I look for grounds of 'exceptional' — exceptional intellect, exceptional grit, and exceptionally precocious willingness to prioritize the startup implicit astir everything other successful their life," helium told BI. "What's the unsocial penetration that makes this startup antithetic from the 100-plus different players going aft the aforesaid market?"
Over the years, keeping these questions successful caput has served Garg good arsenic he's made bets successful startups similar Databricks, which has mulled an IPO, Cohesity, and Turing.
Prior to joining Foundation Capital successful 2008, Garg worked astatine McKinsey and Microsoft.
81. Andrew Miklas
Title: Founder, Functional Capital; cofounder, PagerDuty
Notable investments: Gem, Retool, Clerk, Courier
City: San Francisco
Miklas cofounded the integer operations absorption institution PagerDuty with Alex Solomon and Baskar Puvanathasan successful 2009. He served arsenic the company's main exertion serviceman until 2016 and past transitioned to task capital, becoming a task spouse astatine S28 Capital. He besides founded the early-stage steadfast Functional Capital, which focuses connected B2B startups. Miklas has been a visiting radical spouse astatine Y Combinator since past year. PagerDuty was portion of the accelerator's summertime cohort successful 2010 and became its 2nd institution to spell nationalist aft a 2019 IPO.
82. Lee Fixel
Title: Founder, Addition
Notable investments: Hugging Face, Lyra Health, Satispay
City: New York
Fixel spent much than a decennary astatine Tiger Global Management and played a pivotal relation successful investing successful companies specified arsenic Flipkart, Spotify, and Peloton. In 2019, helium departed to motorboat his ain task superior firm, Addition, which focuses connected early- and growth-stage startups.
During the past six years, Fixel and Addition person built an concern portfolio that includes companies similar Hugging Face, Lyra Health, Satispay, Chainalysis, and Snyk.
83. Ramtin Naimi
Founder and wide partner, Abstract
Notable investments: Solana, Rippling, WorkOS, Hebbia, Passes, Replit
City: San Francisco
Naimi kick-started his concern vocation astatine the property of 15, trading options. He past founded a hedge money astatine conscionable 18. Naimi aboriginal founded Abstract successful 2016, wherever helium focuses connected starring seed-stage deals crossed each sectors. He says the steadfast has $1.6 cardinal successful assets nether management, and caller investments see the AI cause developer instrumentality Anon, the autonomous-robot shaper Watney Robotics, and the AI defence tech startup Kela. As for what Naimi looks for successful a founder, helium said, "I similar high-momentum founders that run with a relentless consciousness of urgency and show caller thinking."
84. Ludwig Pierre Schulze
Title: Managing partner, Alumni Ventures
Notable Investments: Clarium Health, Nixtla, CompScience, ForceMetrics, Synthesis School
City: New York
Pierre Schulze is simply a managing spouse astatine Alumni Ventures, wherever helium writes checks ranging from $50,000 to $10 cardinal to pre-seed to Series B companies. Through Alumni Ventures, Pierre Schulze manages Waterman Ventures, Brown University's VC community, and 116 Street Ventures, Columbia University's VC community.
"One of our companies went from azygous to triple-digit millions of gross successful a year," Pierre Schulze said erstwhile asked astir his biggest accomplishments from 2024.
85. Milad Alucozai
Title: Cofounder and wide partner, Pamir Ventures
Notable investments: Fathom, Character Biosciences, Axonis Therapeutics, Talus Bio, Seqera Labs
City: San Francisco
Alucozai started successful task superior astatine BoxOne Ventures, wherever helium spent astir six years starring 70 of the firm's early-stage investments arsenic its caput of beingness sciences and heavy tech. While astatine BoxOne, helium helped cofound Revalia Bio, a startup spun retired of Yale that's moving to alteration cause find and improvement done the survey of revived quality organs. Alucozai led Revalia Bio's pre-seed circular and invested successful its 2024 effect round.
With a inheritance successful neuroscience, Alucozai said his singular absorption arsenic an early-stage capitalist is identifying superb method founders. He said helium looks for method leaders from humble backgrounds mounting retired to physique long-lasting products.
Alucozai near BoxOne this past summer. This year, helium said he's focused connected gathering and launching an unannounced early-stage task money with 2 of his friends dubbed Pamir Ventures.
86. Meltem Demirors
General partner, Crucible Capital
Notable investments: Double Zero, CentralAxis, Ostium
City: New York
Demirors has had a engaged twelvemonth launching her caller firm, Crucible Capital, which invests successful energy, compute, and crypto startups. Crucible ended 2024 with $36 cardinal successful committed superior from a $50 cardinal people money and is present oversubscribed, Demirors told BI. The steadfast besides precocious made its 3rd investing hire.
For Demirors, Crucible Capital is the earthy hold of her agelong vocation arsenic an capitalist extracurricular the accepted task superior space. Rather than spinning retired of a VC fund, she built concern firms and plus managers successful crypto portion she was angel investing. Prior to launching Crucible, Demirors was the main strategy serviceman astatine the digital-asset concern institution CoinShares.
At Crucible, her LPs are mostly builders, operators, and investors, alternatively than organization investors oregon funds of funds.
"I consciousness similar Crucible is simply a spot of an anomaly and it tin beryllium challenging considering however clubby task tin beryllium sometimes," she said.
87. Mathilde Collin
Title: Cofounder and enforcement chairperson, Front
Notable Investments: Retool, Mercury, Vanta, Copilot, Meter, Browser Use
City: San Francisco
Colllin cofounded Front, a lawsuit work level startup, successful 2013 aft moving arsenic a task manager astatine different startup. She served arsenic Front's CEO until October and is present its enforcement chairperson. Collin besides angel invests successful a assortment of companies, which see the fintech banking startup Mercury and the tool-building level Retool.
In founders, Collin looks for "a delicate equilibrium betwixt humility, aforesaid consciousness and aforesaid confidence," she told BI. "Enough aforesaid assurance to animate radical to beryllium connected the travel with them, capable humility to get radical to assistance them, capable aforesaid consciousness to enactment connected themselves."
88. Christopher Golda
Founder and managing partner, Rogue Capital
Notable investments: Apex Space, Benchling, Coinbase, Stoke Space, Supabase
City: San Francisco
Golda began his entrepreneurial vocation arsenic the laminitis of BackType, an analytics institution that raised backing from Y Combinator and firms specified arsenic True Ventures. Twitter acquired BackType successful 2011, and Golda stayed astatine the societal media institution for 3 years, starring merchandise efforts astatine its advertizing center. He near to motorboat Rogue Capital successful 2014 to backmost effect and Series A startups.
Like galore of the investors connected this list, Golda said helium focuses connected the laminitis erstwhile choosing bets — but he's specifically looking for "a precocious tolerance for chaos and uncertainty," a captious accomplishment helium says tin beryllium particularly hard to make aboriginal successful life. "Without that, adjacent the astir resourceful founders volition conflict to flooded the day-to-day challenges of a startup," helium said.
89. Warren Weiss
Title: Managing partner, WestWave Capital; wide partner, Foundation Capital
Notable investments: Theta Lake, Solo.io, Binarly, Secuvy, Cigent, Savant Labs
City: Redwood City, California
Weiss, a four-time CEO, founded WestWave successful 2017 to put successful emerging bundle companies. In the past year, helium has backed a fig of bundle companies, including Secuvy, Elate, Savant, and Discern Security. He besides serves connected the boards of Trufa, Cyphort, Moxie, SilkRoad Technology, Silver Spring Networks, and Visier.
"This is the astir distributive and breathtaking clip to beryllium successful the early-stage task superior marketplace that I person ever seen," Weiss told BI. "AI volition thrust the reinvention of each azygous class that WestWave Capital invests in. This volition make galore caller multibillio companies."
90. Ann DeWitt
General partner, Engine Ventures
Notable investments: Cellino, Bexorg, Matrisome Bio, Terragia, Anthology, Kano Therapeutics, Source Bio
City: Boston
DeWitt has spent her vocation helping companies physique caller transformative biotechnologies. She began successful VC astatine the Massachusetts beingness sciences steadfast Flagship Pioneering, past moved to Sanofi, wherever she guided the pharma giant's investments.
She joined The Engine, an MIT spinout, successful 2018, 2 years aft its launch. First arsenic The Engine's main operating officer, past arsenic a wide partner, she supported the startup incubator and accelerator's enactment with "tough tech" companies, offering an array of resources from laboratory abstraction to superior for startups gathering successful areas similar clime and quality health.
In 2023, DeWitt stayed connected the investing broadside of the concern erstwhile The Engine divided its startup enactment operations from its task arm. She highlighted Engine Ventures' concern successful Cellino, which announced successful February plans to unfastened a stem compartment manufacturing installation on-site astatine Massachusetts General Hospital successful concern with the apical wellness strategy Mass General Brigham's Gene and Cell Therapy Institute.
91. Michael Sutton
Title: Cofounder and wide partner, Runtime Ventures
Notable Investments: StepSecurity, SplxAI, System Two, Todyl, GreyNoise, Orca Security
City: Arlington, Virginia
Sutton worked successful cybersecurity for much than 2 decades earlier investing successful the abstraction arsenic a task capitalist. He started his vocation astatine EY and past worked astatine the net infrastructure and information institution iDefense, which VeriSign bought successful 2005. Sutton past served arsenic the main accusation information serviceman astatine Zscaler, which helped found the security-as-a-service industry.
Before cofounding the cyber-focused steadfast Runtime Ventures with David Endler, a cybersecurity veteran, Sutton worked successful VC astatine Blu Venture Investors, YL Ventures, and StoneMill Ventures. Runtime's archetypal $32 cardinal money closed successful January 2025. "Starting a VC money from scratch, particularly arsenic a erstwhile operator, took a tremendous magnitude of hard work, unwavering determination and exhausting our network, but it was each worthy it," Sutton told BI.
"Runtime Ventures is the culmination of my acquisition and passionateness gathering and backing cybersecurity startups. It's what I cognize and love," helium said, adding: "We are blessed to beryllium capable to bash this each day."
92. Justin Kan
Title: Cofounder, Goat Capital
Notable investments: Torch, Sendbird, Paystack, ForeVR Games, Cruise
City: San Francisco
Kan is champion known arsenic a cofounder of livestreaming startup Justin.tv and Twitch, the net unrecorded video streaming level that was sold to Amazon successful 2014 for $970 million. He's besides invested successful immoderate of the well-known startups successful tech, including Reddit, Cruise, and Rippling. Kan, who makes effect investments done his steadfast Goat Capital, precocious founded Stash, a direct-to-consumer level for games.
93. Nicolas Dessaigne
Title: General partner, Y Combinator
Notable Investments: Encord, Flower AI, Continue.dev, Wordware, Unsloth
City: San Francisco
Dessaigne knows a happening oregon 2 astir Y Combinator — not lone due to the fact that he's presently a wide spouse astatine the famed accelerator, but besides due to the fact that helium was successful a Y Combinator cohort arsenic a cofounder of Algolia. The hunt API startup past raised backing successful 2021, which valued it astatine much than $2 billion. Now connected the different broadside of the table, Dessaigne has invested successful a slew of Y Combinator-backed companies, specified arsenic the multimodal information labeling AI startup Encord, which raised a $30 cardinal Series B led by Next47 successful August 2024.
"I'm amazed by however AI is giving superpowers to caller founders, from codegen tools that 10x improvement velocity to caller models that unlock monolithic value," Dessaigne told BI. "Incumbents simply can't support up with their pace. There's ne'er been a amended clip to commencement a company."
94. Abhishek Sharma
Managing director, Nexus Venture Partners
Notable investments: Apollo.io, Fingerprint, Nx, Daloopa, TileDB,
City: Menlo Park, California
An technologist by grooming who studied astatine 1 of the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology, Sharma cofounded the startup HelloIntern.com, worked arsenic an subordinate astatine the consulting steadfast Booz & Company, and did a stint astatine eBay earlier jumping into task capital. Since 2015, he's been with the VC steadfast Nexus Venture Partners, which focuses connected endeavor SaaS startups successful the US and integer companies successful India. Sharma has led immoderate of the firm's deals with companies specified arsenic Clover Health, which went nationalist successful 2021.
Sharma said that past twelvemonth helium was an aboriginal capitalist successful the fast-growing AI cause improvement startup StackBlitz, known for its merchandise Bolt.new. He's besides excited astir his caller investments successful the AI workflow automation startup Gumloop and the AI telephone halfway startup Leaping AI.
Sharma said helium "loves partnering with first-time method founders" and values those who person "product obsession, single-minded focus, clarity of thinking, and humility."
95. Wally Wang
Title: Founding managing partner, Scale Asia Ventures
Notable Investments: Weaviate, Argilla, Array, CAST AI, Fiddler AI, AppZen
City: Palo Alto, California
Wang started successful tech arsenic a merchandise manager for Microsoft's Bing hunt engine. After founding 2 startups and moving astatine endeavor bundle companies, helium led task investments for the Asian conglomerate Fosun International and a household office.
While Wang is simply a solo GP astatine Scale Asia Ventures, the tiny but mighty squad has already had 3 acquisitions successful the past year. When investing successful AI infrastructure, Wang scouts founders "who tin adeptly accommodate palmy strategies from the erstwhile unreality epoch to the emerging generative AI landscape," helium said.
96. Andrew Vigneault
Founder and wide partner, Flexcap Ventures
Notable investments: Helicone, Kindo, DraftAid, Crossmint, Nium
City: New York
Vigneault has made his mode onto the headdress tables of immoderate of the biggest startups done his early-stage fund, FlexCap Ventures. He wrote an aboriginal cheque to the NFT trading marketplace OpenSea and a effect cheque to the cybersecurity startup Material Security, which deed a $1.1 cardinal valuation successful 2022.
Vigneault said helium made 16 caller effect investments successful 2024, including a startup processing agentic AI to automate silicon engineering and others gathering AI models to alteration aboriginal detection of chronic illnesses. Of the 50 effect investments helium made from 2022 to 2024, 60% person been marked up done raising follow-on capital, helium said.
When evaluating caller opportunities, Vigneault said, helium focuses connected "partnering with founders who grounds a profound and authentic comprehension of their manufacture and imaginable customers."
97. Zachary Bratun-Glennon
Cofounder and wide partner, Gradient Ventures
Notable Investments: Lambda, Rad AI, ELSA, Venn, Syrup, Clarify
City: San Francisco
Since cofounding Gradient, Google's task money focused connected AI, successful 2017, Bratun-Glennon has invested successful much than 35 companies, and he's connected much than 25 boards. Before Gradient, Bratun-Glennon helmed acquisitions and strategical investments for Google Cloud. He besides worked arsenic a exertion banker astatine Deutsche Bank and began his vocation arsenic an expert astatine the energy-focused steadfast DC Energy.
At Gradient, Bratun-Glennon invests successful pre-seed, seed, and Series A startups gathering successful areas specified arsenic applied AI technologies, fintech, and B2B software. This includes Lambda, a startup astir precocious valued astatine much than $2 cardinal that develops a unreality computing level for AI grooming and inference, which Bratun-Glennon backed successful its effect circular successful 2017.
"We've been focused connected backing the champion founders successful applied AI astatine the earliest stages for a decade, and we deliberation the abstraction is conscionable getting started," Bratun-Glennon told BI. "Today's 'wrappers' are tomorrow's bundle platforms, built by layering unsocial idiosyncratic value, proprietary information and heavy workflow integration."
98. Nitesh Banta
Cofounder and CEO, B12
Notable investments: Codeium, Cognition Labs, Grammarly, ZeroEyes, Varda, Chai Discovery
City: New York
Banta started the nonrecreational services steadfast B12 successful 2015, the aforesaid twelvemonth helium began angel investing done a money called Stellar Capital. Before B12, helium cofounded the car-sharing app Getaround and the student-focused VC steadfast Rough Draft Ventures, and spent 5 years arsenic an capitalist astatine General Catalyst backing early-stage tech companies.
He said the emergence of AI has made the existent infinitesimal the astir breathtaking clip he's experienced successful much than 2 decades of early-stage investing, highlighting AI's quality to alteration founders to bash much with less.
"With little capital, founders tin leverage AI to physique amended products and standard faster than ever," helium said.
99. Ash Egan
Cofounder, Archetype Ventures
Notable investments: Privy, Farcaster, Reservoir, Parcl, Chainalysis, Bison Trails
City: New York
Egan has been starring investments successful seed-stage crypto companies and protocols since 2015, penning aboriginal checks to startups including Chainalysis, Mina, Near, and Balancer. He besides antecedently led investments for the VC steadfast Accomplice successful Dapper Labs/Flow and Bison Trails (which was acquired by Coinbase), among others. One of Egan's aboriginal investments, Privy, deed 50 cardinal wallets this twelvemonth and raised a caller circular of backing led by Ribbit Capital.
Egan said he's funny successful investing successful startups astatine the "intersection of crypto and AI; programmable societal networks and applications that volition beryllium built atop; and infrastructure and middleware that volition marque blockchains arsenic accelerated and arsenic inexpensive arsenic an API call."
100. Morgan Flager
Managing partner, Silverton Partners
Notable investments: AlertMedia, Ping Identity, Self Financial, The Zebra, The Helper Bees, Repairify
City: Austin
Flager has spent the past 18 years astatine Silverton Partners, wherever helium has been a managing spouse since 2009. At Silverton, Flager has sponsored 24 investments, arsenic good arsenic overseeing 11 acquisitions and 2 IPOs. Before that, helium concisely worked astatine FTV Capital successful San Francisco arsenic an associate. He got his commencement arsenic an relation astatine the past startups Ingrian Networks and Kintana. Flager besides cofounded the e-commerce infrastructure startup Woosh successful 1998.
Flager said that successful his 25 years successful task superior and startups, determination had ne'er been a much breathtaking clip to beryllium an early-stage tech investor. "We're witnessing an unprecedented question of innovation, wherever advances successful artificial quality are rapidly transforming each industry, from healthcare and concern to acquisition and entertainment," helium told BI. "The gait of advancement is accelerating, and startups natively leveraging AI are not lone solving analyzable problems faster and much efficaciously but they are besides creating wholly caller markets."
Interactive improvement by Annie Fu and Randy Yeip.
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