Generationship is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture fund founded by Rachel Chalmers and Michelle Yi, investing in technical female founders building software infrastructure for the AI platform shift. The fund's core thesis is that the venture market has systematically underpriced technical female founders in software infrastructure, not as a diversity statement, but as a pricing inefficiency thesis. The firm sources deals from deep inside developer infrastructure communities, where Chalmers has spent decades identifying early-stage talent before broader market recognition.
Generationship invests exclusively in technical female founders building software infrastructure at the intersection of AI and enterprise technology. Focus areas include AI infrastructure, developer tooling, data platforms, agentic systems, Kubernetes and cloud security, network and edge intelligence, and quantum and HPC workflow orchestration. The firm invests at the earliest stages, pre-seed and seed, where it believes the pricing inefficiency is greatest and the opportunity to shape a company is most meaningful.
Fund I closed at $2.7 million in June 2026, oversubscribed from its $2.5 million target and ahead of schedule. The fund has deployed into 13 portfolio companies, with one, Edera, already at a 4x markup following its Series A led by M12. LP composition has not been publicly disclosed. The firm describes Fund I as a prototype fund designed to validate the thesis before raising a larger institutional vehicle.
Leadership
Rachel Chalmers is co-GP and co-founder. Her background spans early-stage venture and corporate venture capital, including roles as Partner at Heavybit, President and Managing Director of Alchemist Accelerator, and Venture Partner at Merian Ventures. Her sourcing network is built around the developer infrastructure community, with early involvement in Honeycomb.io, Docker, Aviatrix, LaunchDarkly, and EngFlow,m representing $6 billion in market cap across past investments. Michelle Yi is co-GP and co-founder. She has 20 years of experience in AI and cloud computing, including a contribution to the original IBM Watson system that won Jeopardy. She has since led applied AI initiatives across enterprise and social impact contexts, including work with the American Cancer Society and the United Nations, and serves on the board of Women in Data.
Faculty
Generationship's Faculty program brings in operators and founders to support portfolio companies. Faculty members include Melody Meckfessel, former CEO of Observable HQ and former VP Engineering at Google, and others drawn from the developer infrastructure community.
Investment Strategy
Generationship leads at pre-seed and seed, writing initial checks into technical female founders before institutional consensus forms. The firm pairs capital with close operational involvement, described by portfolio founder Emily Long of Edera as close enough to contribute and useful enough to open doors, while giving founders room to build. Generationship also sponsors The Tech Bros, an all-female, all-technical accelerator run by Milette Gillow, now in its second year.
Notable Investments
United States
