Jess Mah

We invest at Pre-VC and Pre-Seed, and then help our founders find a Seed round when they're ready. Here are 27 Seed investors that we *know* are active right now. Blue Moon Bonfire Ventures Chingona Ventures Flying Fish Partners Foothill Ventures Great North Ventures ground game HealthX Ventures InsurTech Venture Partners KCRise Fund Las Olas Venture Capital Leva Capital Maven Ventures Monte Carlo Capital Moonshots Capital OneSixOne Ventures Oval Park Capital Pixel Perfect Ventures Range Ventures Revolution SNAK Venture Partners Startup Capital Ventures Supernode Global Susa Ventures Trilogy Equity Partners True Ventures True Wealth Ventures

78

15 Comments

Seed-stage fundraising requires differentiation. Grind Ventures found it at the intersection of three underserved markets Technology transfer from universities creates early-stage opportunities that most VCs miss. Defense and federal marketplace applications provide revenue visibility. Critical infrastructure sectors offer commercial scale. Focused Thesis - Dual-use technologies serving defense and 16 critical infrastructure sectors Technology Transfer - University research teams1-5 years old at $1-3M valuations Revenue Clarity - Federal marketplace provides structured procurement pathways Commercial Scale - Critical infrastructure sectors offer massive addressable markets   Geographic Focus - US-based companies with clear domestic advantages Stage Discipline - Seed investments with defined entry points and milestones The market rewards problem-obsessed founders with healthy margins and cash flow visibility. Dual-use technology delivers both. Which of these thesis elements resonates most with your investment approach? #VC #GrindVentures #ThoughtLeadership

19

6 Comments

Nscale just raised $3.5B in pre-IPO financing after signing a $45B deal with Anthropic. For infrastructure founders, that's a masterclass in customer concentration as proof of scale. For product founders? It's noise. Here's why: you're not competing in the infrastructure gold rush. You're building products that solve real problems using AI as a feature. The economics, timelines, and success metrics are completely different. **Infrastructure vs. Product: Know Which Game You're Playing** Nscale needs billions because they're deploying data centers and negotiating multi-year compute contracts. Their fundraising round reflects capital intensity, not product validation. You need speed. You need a working MVP in customers' hands in days, not a pitch deck promising delivery in 18 months. You need paying users who achieve measurable outcomes, not letters of intent from Fortune 500s who might buy in two years. **The One Lesson That Translates** Nscale's $45B Anthropic contract wasn't just revenue—it was proof a major player bet their roadmap on Nscale's platform. That single deal unlocked $3.5B in pre-IPO capital. For product founders, the lesson scales down but stays true: one reference customer who achieves real results is worth more than ten warm introductions. Ship fast, prove value with one customer, then leverage that proof to close the next ten. **You Don't Need Infrastructure-Level Capital** Product founders often fall into the trap of thinking they need massive funding to compete in AI. You don't. What you need is: → A working, sellable MVP that solves a real problem → Real customers using it and paying for it → Fast iteration cycles based on actual feedback → Revenue that funds growth, not hopes of a mega-round The modern AI stack—LLMs, vector databases, embeddings—is accessible and affordable. The bottleneck isn't compute. It's execution speed. **How TechAhir Builds Working, Sellable Products in Days** We've watched too many founders spend months "building the right way" only to launch something nobody wants. We've also watched MVP factories ship vibe-coded prototypes that collapse under real user load. We do neither. We ship working, sellable MVPs in 3 days—real products you can put in front of customers and collect revenue from—because: **Speed WITH discipline.** We use proven frameworks and pre-built modules, but every line is production-quality. No technical shortcuts. No vibe-coding. **Senior developers as project leaders AND the human guardrail.** Your PM is a senior engineer who has built and shipped products at scale. They catch architectural mistakes before they happen. **Virtually zero defects.** Every MVP goes through customized-model QA that simulates real user behavior. We find and fix edge cases before your customers do. The result? You're in market before competit… [Get your MVP built in 3 days](https://lnkd.in/e-RFCB_8) #AI #Startups #MVP #ProductDevelopment #TechNews

2

California just created bureaucratic hell for VCs in the name of diversity tracking, and it's going to hit way more funds than people realize. Started March 1, 2026, venture capital firms with a "California nexus" must register with the state and file annual demographic reports on every portfolio company they fund. Sounds reasonable, right? Track diversity data, promote transparency, make the world a better place... Except the definition of "California nexus" is so absurdly broad that it basically applies to majority of the VC funds on the planet. Here's the actual test from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation: You're a "Covered Entity" if you meet ANY of these criteria: (A) The venture capital company is headquartered in California. (B) The venture capital company has a significant presence or operational office in California. (C) The venture capital company makes venture capital investments in businesses that are located in, or have significant operations in, California. (D) The venture capital company solicits or receives investments from a person who is a resident of California. Read criterion D again. "Solicits or receives investments from a person who is a resident of California." Not "primarily raises from California." Not "has material California LP exposure." A single LP who happens to live in California triggers the entire compliance regime. So congratulations to every European fund, every Asian fund, every East Coast fund that has ever taken money from someone who owns a house in San Francisco or LA. You're now subject to California state regulation. Oh, and criterion C? "Makes venture capital investments in businesses that are located in, or have significant operations in, California." So if you've ever funded a single company in the Bay Area - which is basically every VC fund that exists - you're covered. California just created a global VC registry under the guise of diversity reporting. Here's what you have to do if you're covered: Register with the DFPI and survey every founding team member of every portfolio company you funded in 2025 about their gender identity, race, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ status, disability status, veteran status, and California residency. - Aggregate and anonymize the data - File an annual report by April 1, 2026 - Keep records for five years - Have your reports posted publicly on the DFPI website - Face penalties if you don't comply And here's the kicker: the surveys are "voluntary" for founders. They can legally decline to answer every question. So you're building an entire compliance infrastructure around data that founders can refuse to provide. What exactly are you measuring if half the founders just check "decline to state for all"? This is so weird. Link to DFPI: https://lnkd.in/eUjqYX3q

9

1 Comment

Two weeks ago on Swimming with Allocators, we sat down with David Clark, CIO at VenCap, to talk about what decades of venture data can teach allocators. One takeaway that stood out: discounts don’t matter as much as people think in venture secondaries. Because venture is such a power-law asset class, outcomes are driven by exposure to a few massive winners. Whether a stake is bought at a small discount, or even a premium, often matters far less than the quality of the underlying company and its upside. Great conversation on venture returns, manager selection, and the nuances of how allocators should think about secondary investments. 👇 Link in the comments.

26

2 Comments