10 Top Pre-Seed VC Firms 2024

Investments by a venture capital firm are vital for a new startup that needs a substantial amount of money to grow and thrive. Check out this list of pre-seed investors for early stage startups in various industries.

We also recommend visiting our list of the top venture capital firms.

• Location: Bloomington, Ind.
• Industries Include: Edtech, Robotics, and Enterprise Software
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Pango, Toggle, and Fiveable

Founded in 2019 and based in the Greater Indiana area, Twenty Seven Ventures, also known as 27V, leads the first funding rounds for pre-seed startups building the future of learning and labor. While the firm is still relatively new with a one-person staff, it provides decent funds for startups to grow past the pre-seed stage. 

27V usually invests up to $250,000 in global edtech startups, leading pre-seed rounds. It has 18 investments, and some portfolio companies include Topknot, Fluent, NewCampus, and Wethos. However, the firm actively seeks investments to help new startups grow in the edtech and robotics industries.

• Location: Baltimore, Md.
• Industries Include: Business and Financial Services
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Mainstreet, Americana, EarlyBird, and Nectar

RareBreed Ventures is a pre-seed fund that invests in technology companies. It allows angel investors to become limited partners to receive substantial funds.

The firm has 33 investments and helped raise $40 million in September 2022. Although it writes small checks up to $250,000, its financial services have benefited its clients by growing their startups through hard work and dedication. In addition, RareBreed Ventures has invested in a variety of companies, including Beauty By Me, Thousand Fell, Matrix, Pugo Health, and Triangle.

• Location: New York, N.Y.
• Industries Include: Biotech, Deep Tech, Fintech, and Digital Health
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Airspace Link, GlossGenius, and Soona

2048 Ventures is a thesis-driven earliest-stage venture capital firm located in the greater New York Area. It’s hyper-focused on helping visionary founders dedicated to building technologies of the future, investing money in early stage mission-driven teams on their first-round funding journey.

Unfortunately, 2048 Ventures doesn’t disclose an investment range publicly. Still, it has backed 200+ startups that include Acorn Finance, Pathspot, Recora Health, and Propensity, and has raised a total of $94 million across only two pre-seed funds. One advantage the team has over many other early seed venture capital investors is its list of industry tycoon partners, such as Stripe, Google, Shopify, and HubSpot.

• Location: San Francisco, Calif.
• Industries Include: Software as a Service (SaaS), Digital Health, Fintech, and Education
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Aunt Flow, Homeroom, Juniper Square, and StackShare

Precursor Ventures is a Bay Area-based classic venture capital pre-seed investor that supports founders who have the potential to evolve in their specialized industries. The firm stands by its sector-agnostic pledge and deals with early seed startups for their beginning to mid stages.

While Precursor Ventures doesn’t invest in deeptech and hardtech companies, it funds pre-product and pre-launch companies. It also leads pre-seed rounds up to $1 million, writes checks between $250,000 and $500,000, and has backed more than 300 startups, including AnyRoad, Pandia Health, and VoiceOps. Aside from making 30 to 40 new investments per year, Precursor Ventures is open to meeting new teams to form professional connections and conduct business deals — mainly through website submissions and cold outreach.

• Location: San Francisco, Calif.
• Industries Include: Robotics, Health IT, and Machine Learning
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Erthos, Glide Health, Geosite, and Crowdbotics

Bee Partners puts pre-seed founders at the forefront of advanced machine and human convergence. The firm’s team believes that advanced technology can assist healthcare professionals, using scientific intelligence through robotics. It seeks exceptional founders with a similar interest in frontier technologies that have the potential to dominate its specialized industries.

Although Bee Partners doesn’t publicize its investment range, it has more than 100 investments and has raised $130 million in funds. The firm’s portfolio includes companies like Deepscribe, InnerPlant, and Warp Logistics.

• Location: Wilmington, Del.
• Industries Include: Cryptocurrency and Fintech
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Breez, Bitlum, and Revault

Fulgur Ventures combines decades of experience building companies from scratch and growing them in emerging and fast-growing industries. It helps create startups navigate cryptocurrency, according to evolving industry standards and practices.

Since its establishment in 2019, Fulgur Ventures has provided funding and valuable guidance to startups working to move past the pre-seed stage. The firm is still relatively new, but writes checks up to $200,000 based on startup value, experience, and performance. It also invests money in later-stage companies to expand its growing portfolio, which includes clients like ZigZag, Coinmiles, Shock Network, and Amber.

• Location: Silicon Valley (Menlo Park, Calif.)
• Industries Include: Technology
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Sunlight, Mirror, and FlutterFlow

Lombardstreet Ventures invests in pre-seed startups locally and outside California. It draws from talents worldwide and handles the creation of startups in California and other states. The company boasts a team of seasoned executives who work with a small group of favorable entrepreneurs.

One of Lomardstreet’s most notable ventures is Calm, a well-known sleep and digital meditation app. Its other profile companies include Bear Flag Robotics and Albedo, which help it accumulate up to millions in assets and funding from previous investments within the past several years.

• Location: Chicago, Ill.
• Industries Include: B2B Software
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Allocations, AIRIA, Aunt Flow, and GOING PUBLIC

VITALIZE Venture Capital is a Chicago-based VC firm that invests in early stage and angel-stage business-to-business (B2B) technology startups with high performance and profitability potential. In 2021, the firm started VITALIZE Angels, a community of investors dedicated to supporting pre-seed companies that need money to continue their growth and a higher series level.

VITALIZE Venture Capital boasts about its favored status among Chicago founders and startups in other states, which it has proven based on its record of 40+ active investments and partners in its current network, netting it at least $10 million in assets. Its other notable portfolio companies include Elevate K-12, NOWHERE, The Mom Project, and SUMA.

• Location: Oakland, Calif.
• Industries Include: Fintech
• Notable Portfolio Companies: Copper, Empower, and Harmonic

Launchpad Capital builds and invests in fintech companies in Oakland and outside California. It implements permanent structural changes to the global financial services industry, and believes readily accessible infrastructure will unlock empowering economic and technological innovation.

With experience investing in companies that specialize in technology, Launchpad Capital has an extensive portfolio that includes Mesh, Paperwork, and Zebec.

• Location: Menlo Park, Calif.
• Industries Include: AI, Climate Tech, and SaaS
• Notable Portfolio Companies: DoorDash, illume, and The Coterie

Pear isn't just a venture capital firm or early stage fund, it’s helped to found more than 10 startups in addition to its investments that total more than $50 billion. The firm’s focus areas include consumer, SaaS, enterprise tech, healthcare, deep tech, fintech, biotech, AI, and climate tech.

Pear offers pre-seed, seed, and follow-on investment in varying amounts, depending on a company’s stage. Plus, with its pre-seed bootcamp, PearX, founders with high-potential ideas can get help finding their target market, building their product, and laying a foundation for rapid growth.

• Angel Investor Groups
• Crowdfunding Sites
• Startup Accelerators
• Startup Grants
• Venture Capital Books
• Books on Startup Funding