Emerging 50

"Mike is an incredible day 0 partner. He is not afraid to get his hands dirty and help out in any way he can, from doing deep dives on product feedback to making incredible customer referrals. He is so much more than a check; he does whatever it takes to help you succeed." — Ori Konstantin (Co-Founder, CultureScience)

"Vijen and 81 Collection differentiate themselves on our Cap table by being helpful to a truly different level. When asked, their team delivers an incredible amount of hands-on value and consistently goes above and beyond what we could hope for. Vijen embodies a unique combination of a deeply experienced founder/operator and also a razor sharp VC; and he was so helpful after their initial investment, we opened up a second tranche just to increase their position. Vijen makes us better everyday with his direct feedback, delivering on our key asks, and his intense founder loyalty." — Ben Christensen (Founder, Cambium Carbon)

"Mendel has been our biggest cheerleader. He was our first money in and has always been there to give us advice on key issues we face. Mendel is very kind and thoughtful, and puts the entrepreneur and their needs first." — Tyler York (Co-Founder, Achievable.me)

"Renowned tastemaker VC in pre-seed/seed in Australia, Ben comes from a heralded background and showed depth and speed of insight that was uncharacteristic from the 100s of partners we spoke to, continuously helpful in guiding the management of our strategy and product direction. He's the perfect balance of interested/supportive without being controlling." — Thomas Kelly (Co-Founder, Heidi Health)

"Pedro has strong experience in Latin America with a deep network in the United States. He has built a fund that truly supports invested companies with resources like PR and recruiting while also supporting the founders personally with development feedback and networking events. Highly recommend working with Pedro!" — Arthur Joseph O'Keefe IV (LP)

"Alana and the base case community feel like family. From the customer introductions that led to our first paying customers, to the founding engineer dinners that connected us with our strongest candidates, to the product feedback that has helped shape our roadmap, she's there where we need it the most. Alana is our first call and we couldn't imagine building Motif without her." — Michael Fester & Marie Schneegans (Co-Founders, Motif)

"Abhi, Antoine and Hannah engaged deeply at the earliest stage. Their insight, network and support were massive contributors to our early success. They've continued to provided outsized help - I'd encourage any Fintech founder to work with the Blank team! " — Luke Finney (Co-Founder, Mercantile)

"There is currently a need in the marketplace for founders post seed, pre series A. Brickyard has uniquely filled that gap with a one of a kind founder community and workspace." — Austin Pager (Co-Founder, Coast)

"Yoann was truly instrumental in helping us close our Series A. He introduced us to high-caliber investors that helped us reshape our internal culture and set major strategic decisions to go on and generate significant commercial traction." — Keiran Whitaker (Founder, Entocycle)

"A founder friend raised from Carmen previously, and said she was the single biggest help to getting his company off the ground. I can only concur: Carmen and Cocoa has helped me, a first time founder, navigate fundraising both with practical advice, as well as the subtle aspects of unwritten VC rules and expectations. To top off they truly care, made obvious through numerous thoughtful check-ins, questions, and surprises!" — Eric Hansander (Co-Founder, Peach)

"Ariana is a force to be reckoned with. Once she invests, she has 1000% conviction in the company and will be your biggest advocate. She's our hardest working investors and will go the distance for us!" — Cheryl Sew Hoy (Co-Founder, Tiny Health)

"As an AI company, we aimed to raise from funds that deeply understood the AI space and where it's heading. Igor has been ahead of the curve, focusing on this area long before it was 'hot', with a great perspective on the market. Beyond AI-specific help, Igor has consistently provided immensely valuable coaching and advice...he's never pushy and doesn't give unsolicited advice. But when I ask for help, he'll jump on the phone immediately to help me figure out how to solve the current issue I'm facing." — Matt Shumer (Co-Founder, OthersideAI)

"We invested in Empath because we believe in psychedelic medicine’s potential to transform mental healthcare, addiction treatment and more. Empath’s team has a high level of domain expertise & unparalleled access to deals in the space." — Jim O'Shaughnessy (LP)

"Since his time at Websummit, Dec has built one of the best networks in venture across Europe, the US and Asia. He’s loved by the founders he works with and is able to source amazing companies at the earliest stage." — Sia Houchangnia (LP)

"Coley has been an awesome resource for our team at Homebase. He's given us real-time real estate market insights, GTM feedback, and even reviewed our pitch deck when we were fundraising. Highly recommend their fund to any founder I meet with." — Domingo Valadez (Co-Founder, Homebase)

"Given his experience as an early engineer at Palantir and percipient.ai, Mark has a very strong intuition on both execution and building great products. This has paid off countless times when I was in need of advice with regards to hiring & product strategy." — Craig Weiss (Founder, Rome)

"We met Lolita around Dec 2021. Back then, we didn't have a community and she challenged us to build one due to our business model. 6 month later, we had a community responsible for most of our lead generation. We wanted to keep executing in that direction alongside Lolita." — Martin Haiek (Co-Founder, Around)

"The Garuda team is comprised of extremely talented operators-turned-investors, and they have previously built companies from inception to IPO and beyond. Their reputation as world class partners to early stage entrepreneurs is a clear differentiator that helps them win in competitive deals. They focus on sectors where they have built businesses themselves and have deep networks, which allows them to meaningfully impact the trajectory of their portfolio companies." — Amit A. Patel (LP)

"Mario has one of the best understanding of new trends and is able to connect with some of the top industry leaders. He’s also one of the sharpest and nicest people I know in early stage VC." — Etienne Brunet (LP)

"We chose to partner with Gold House Ventures because we've seen first hand how hard they work to champion their portfolio founders through their entire celebrity and influencer network and how they constantly look for opportunities to bring brand and revenue partnership opportunities to the table. The entire team at Gold House Ventures has proactively driven value for immi week on week and we've happily recommended them to every founder in our network." — Kevin Lee (Founder, immi)

"Eric's deep expertise in the mobile ecosystem and attention to impacts initiatives like Apple ATT have on publishers, advertisers, and the greater ecosystem as a whole makes him the most valuable name on our cap table. His ability to open doors, articulate the value proposition of our service, and immediately grasp any hurdles we might face make his capital the easiest decision we had to make." — Keith Petri (Founder, lockrMail)

"Scott and House Of Ventures are building an LP base including next-gen members from industry leading families and designing a fund operating model that I have not seen before, creating a platform for a community of LP’s to learn together and collectively unlock strategic value for the portfolio companies. Sometimes family offices are an afterthought in venture and with this model we feel like we are earning a seat at the table with both entrepreneurs and fellow venture capital firms, allowing us to feel like more than a check and participate as value add investors in a way that wasn’t possible before." — Ben VanderWeide (LP)

"Gautam’s experience as one of the top operators and angels in India uniquely positions him to build a generational firm and support founders in a meaningful way. Founders I know who have worked with Gautam have consistently said incredible things, be it about his ability to unblock them on go-to-market challenges or support them on their future fundraising rounds. Put simply, very few people in the world have his expertise in the context of the Indian technology ecosystem." — Afraj Gill (LP)

"One of the best early-stage climate investors on the planet. Particularly helpful in crafting narratives for fundraising and company identity." — McGee Young (Founder, WattCarbon)

"Adam had rave reviews from other founders that he has worked with over the years, and our experience working with him has definitely lived up to-and surpassed-our expectations. Adam is extremely intelligent and thoughtful which makes him an invaluable thought partners on nearly every aspect of our business from fundraising, to strategic partnerships, to sales team structure and strategy." — Melissa Tran (Co-Founder, Earlyday)

"Instead of speaking in hyperbole, I'll just tell you what Lorimer has actually done for us since investing. They've made countless, high quality candidate introductions for jobs we've posted, introduced us to core vendors who we love, facilitated real customer conversations, and have come to the table with specific ideas for how to improve our core product and business model. Finding VCs + operators who contribute with this frequency, and at this level, is really hard - Lorimer's impact extends as far as, if not farther than, any fund with whom we've partnered." — Steven Greene (Co-Founder, Nibble Health)

"Mark has experience as the founder/CEO at Braze (now a public company), and he has unique expertise as a SaaS founder-turned investor." — Nikhil Basu Trivedi (LP)

"They are an excellent team of ex-operators. They were exceptionally helpful in helping us close our funding round with introductions to other VCs. We really like working with them because they are extremely entrepreneurial and go that extra mile." — Rupul Safaya (Co-Founder, eDRV)

"Chris and James have been extremely helpful and pleasant to work with. From a cultural perspective, they genuinely care about being helpful and being empathetic to the entrepreneur’s journey. Functionally, their operational expertise is exceptional and their pool of talent that they can tap into is vast - helping us land a crucial head of Ops hire. Glad they’re on our side!" — Raad Mobrem (Co-Founder, Intro)

"Blaise and his team have a great reputation as founder friendly investors, and they’ve been the most helpful out all of our investors - from high value introductions, to Blaise himself personally helping with our launch. I’ve founded and exited two companies in the past, and Blaise stands out." — Razmig Hovaghimian (Co-Founder, Matchday)

"Janine is the genuine embodiment of the "value add investor". I got to know her before she invested in Blooming Health, while helping us on multiple key problems we were solving at the early stages of my startup. As an overlooked founder herself and understanding the value of every single dollar, she educated and encouraged us to build and run a distributed lean operation and extend our runway to PMF, before anyone else in the market started talking about the age of "austerity". It was obvious that this is the type of partner we want to have alongside us for the long and hard journey of building our business." — Nima Roohi, Ph.D. (Co-Founder, Blooming Health)

"Joining Ken and Pack Ventures was a no-brainer for us because we were given direct access to the University of Washington startup network. Ken goes further by becoming a direct line for any ideas, questions, or blockers. He doesn’t hesitate to meet us in person to dive into any problem we have for him. We have been extremely impressed with Pack Ventures’ level of support, even before we were thinking about raising capital." — Devin Ajimine & Pouya Rad (Co-Founders, LifeAt.io)

"Josh was our first supporter, committed a check without a lead investor. Helped us fill our cap table with amazing investors via connections + recommendations. Helped us interview candidates and make connections to an unbelievable amount of people." — Anne Wen (Co-Founder, Stell Engineering)

"Shane was one of my early believers upon graduating YC, and I increased his check size prior to raising a second tranche at a higher valuation. He offered to connect me to a good handful of investors throughout my raise, and his encouragement sparked my writing investor updates. He has provided valuable biz dev intros, and I've sent founder friends his way because of his high-ROI check." — Akhil Reddy (Co-Founder, Thera)

"They are my go to for several things. When I’m excited about a win. When I’m lost after taking an L. When I need to throw some ideas against the wall. They’re there and available and proactive about it too. We accepted funding from them because they’re good people and they’re supply chain experts. The fact that they’re respected with strong networks is a huge plus." — Yasin Abbak (Co-Founder, GroupUps)

"The team is one of the best I've ever seen at sourcing high quality deals and providing top notch, high-level expertise to founders in the BioTech and Autonomous vehicle space." — Michael Finch (LP)

"Great and experienced team and passionate about impact. Revent was able to help us very hands-on to push some strategic topics to the next level. In our case they helped big time with our impact strategy as well as with our pricing strategy." — Inas Nureldin (Founder, Tomorrow)

"There’s money, smart money, and smart good money. Brian is the rare third. Unique combo of: quickly understood and has been a sounding board for a huge/ unconventional vision (without being scared off), has brought great media exposure and community, all while being genuine and values-driven." — Mario Vasilescu (Co-Founder, Readocracy.com)

"Incredible hustle / ambition, track record of getting into great investments (and early before top funds), and a GP that founders have thanked me for introducing them too." — Bryan Rosenblatt (LP)

"From a founder perspective, SeedClub was the one entity that really helped us get off the ground. We had all the VCs pass on us pre-product, only SCV sensed potential and wrote out first cheque." — Raz (Founder, Guild)

"David's expertise in AI and ability to evaluate early stage AI companies. No hype and transparency is a key attribute that attracted me to this venture. I will invest in his next fund as well." — Benné Betté (LP)

"We are very excited about our partnership with Sheva. Omri and David's unique combination at the GP level is the winning recipe for a successful fund. When it comes to measuring an emerging fund, we focus on coverage of the startup landscape, access to the AAA+ deals, and the ability to provide tangible value. Omri's background as one of the most successful personas in Israel, and David's career as. a pre-seed investor, creates an unfair advantage for Sheva to see all the deals, get an allocation in the top 1% of Israeli startups, and create real commercial value for their portfolio." — Ori Keren (LP)

"Jonathan is a successful former founder, having been a CEO for 10 years & selling his company for a significant exit. Space.VC has been our most operationally helpful VC, with deep domain expertise, introducing us to customers, helping raise capital, negotiating term sheets & contracts, and strategizing our product roadmap. Space.VC is truly an extension of our founding team." — Yanni Barghouty (Co-Founder, Cosmic Shielding Corporation)

"Spacecadet has been helpful with: 1. Leveraging their hyper creative talent to help founders craft their story for future rounds. 2. Connecting me with new customers and championed our company across social media unprompted. 3. Checking-in often for the sole purpose of being helpful and are clearly present for the long term." — Jonathan Swerdlin (Co-Founder, Function Health)

"I partnered with Spark to scale my company which is backed by a16z and YC. I specifically wanted to work with Hem Suri as he thinks like a founder yet has the broad vantage point of seeing a lot of companies and deal flow. He has been very helpful as we monetize our unique Bio data set and also close BD deals. As a person, Hem is very supportive of female founders and will respond to my text anytime. I highly recommend Hem and Spark." — Christina K. Lopes (Founder, One Health Company)

"Maya has been helping our company for a while and what I appreciate the most is that she is completely all in when she decides to fund a startup. She'll use the product extensively, talk to customers, and bring us new, highly informed insights that we might have missed. She brings that founder-level scrappiness to venture capital and is able to come up with creative out of the box solutions for problems we had in growth, product, and marketing. Her positivity and optimism is contagious and it's been the edge that's kept us at the top of the industry." — Shelby Thomas (Co-Founder, Prysm)

"They are a well established VC within infrastructure and really understood our vision and direction. They have been instrumental in getting a wide network of other projects and investors. They have also coordinated relevant events for us to participate and get get more awareness." — Cuautemoc Weber (Co-Founder, Gateway.fm)

"Nik is a visionary in the fintech space, a great connector. He’s successfully created a unique flywheel between This Week in Fintech, the fund, a syndicate, and events that TWIF throws on FOUR continents! Between all this, he still has time to connect with everybody who asks for time, and is always open to lending an ear and positive attitude." — Alex Gillette (LP)

"Sophia is a force of nature. From the moment we met her, she has been a continuous stream of positive impact – from her ideas to product feedback, connections and real talk. She was the first person we sent our Matcha Latte to and her feedback helped make it our #1 product today. Unlike most investors, she regularly checks in to see how we’re doing and whether she can genuinely be helpful. A++ investor who understands the realities of being a founder." — Michael Sharon (Co-Founder, Taika)

"They have been incredible positive, they see our vision, and they have been accessible and helpful in making intros to others investors, fellow founders, future customers/partners and getting us acquainted with Silicon Valley." — Maxwell Dordevic (Co-Founder, NeuroX1)