Before the buzz. Before the traction. Before anyone believes. These VCs do.Ex-founders. Operators. Solo capitalists. Athletes.
All of them are spotting breakout companies when there’s no product, no revenue — just a pitch deck and conviction.
Despite a tighter funding market, they’re backing the future of AI, defense tech, fintech, biotech, and SaaS.
Here are 21 names from the Seed 100 list and the startups they’re betting will change everything: 👇
1. Darian Shirazi – Gradient Ventures
Investments: Gigs, Legora, Krea, Numeral, Range, Writer
2. Ann DeWitt – Engine Ventures
Investments: Cellino, Bexorg, Matrisome Bio, Terragia, Anthology, Kano Therapeutics, Source Bio
3. Justin Kan – Goat Capital
Investments: Torch, Sendbird, Paystack, ForeVR Games, Cruise
4. Nick Candito 🌥 – ACOF
Investments: Carta, TrueMed, Metafy, Augment Markets, Atomic Insights, BRM
5. Itamar Novick – Recursive Ventures
Investments: Deel, Placer.ai, May Mobility, Akash Network, Tomato AI, Anjuna Security
6. Gokul Rajaram – Marathon Management Partners
Investments: Deel, BetterUp, Figma, Printify, Boon, Atlas
7. Shruti Gandhi – Array Ventures
Investments: Capsule, Eventual Computing, Mozart Data, Placer.ai, Rad AI, Runway.team
8. Rohit Bansal– Titan Capital
Investments: Ola, Urban Company, Mamaearth, OfBusiness, Unicommerce, Credgenics, Giva, Shadowfax
9. Benjamin Ling – Bling Capital
Investments: GitHub, Rippling, Airtable, Spellbook, Noetica
10. Nitesh Banta – B12 / Stellar Capital
Investments: Codeium, Cognition Labs, Grammarly, ZeroEyes, Varda, Chai Discovery
11. Mathilde Collin – Angel Investor / Front
Investments: Retool, Mercury, Vanta, Copilot, Meter, Browser Use
12. Ramtin N. – Abstract
Investments: Solana, Rippling, WorkOS, Hebbia, Passes, Replit
13. Ryan Hoover – Weekend Fund
Investments: Atlys, Deel, Extropic, Justpoint, Luminai, Pipe, Truemed
14. Marlon C. Nichols – MaC Venture Capital
Investments: Thrive Market, Pipe, Finesse, Purestream, Seed Health, Truebill
15. Martin Tobias – Incisive Ventures
Investments: Jeeves, OpenSea, Enable, Yassir, Portside, LMNT
16. Anne Dwane – Village Global
Investments: Commontools, P-1 AI, AirGarage, Cherry, Pave, Grow Therapy
17. Guillermo Rauch – Angel Investor / Vercel
Investments: Perplexity, ElevenLabs, Resend, Spline, Braintrust
18. Laura (Bordewieck) Rippy – Alumni Ventures
Investments: Daydream, Rent App, Barnwell Bio, Atomic Supply, TRM Labs, Believer.gg
19. Ed Sim – Boldstart Ventures
Investments: BigID, Common Paper, Kustomer, Protect AI, Snyk, Tessl
20. Jeff Fluhr – Craft Ventures
Investments: Warby Parker, Twilio, Houzz, CrewAI, Arch, Pickle
21. Ali Tamaseb – DCVC
Investments: StarkWare, ElectronX, Odyssey, Earth AI, Chai Discovery
Follow fundind.com for more funding trends, investor moves, and the early-stage bets shaping the next decade.
