TheFounderVC (TFVC) is a pre-seed and seed venture fund founded in 2024 and based in Seattle and San Francisco, focused exclusively on early-stage Vertical AI companies in the United States. The firm is built by a team of multi-time founders and AI product builders who invest from a founder-first perspective, with a track record that includes founding, scaling, and exiting AI startups collectively generating $5B in shareholder value and growing AI-native products from zero to over $3B in revenue.
TFVC backs founders building vertical AI companies, specifically those combining deep domain expertise with an AI-native product vision to capture structural data advantages and build workflow-native, hyper-personalized user experiences. The thesis is that the largest value creation opportunity in the current AI wave is not in foundational models but in industry-specific applications built on top of them, where proprietary data and distribution create durable competitive moats.
TheFounderVC launched its inaugural Fund I in early 2026 with a total size of $5M. The fund is actively deploying at the pre-seed and seed stages and has already backed seven portfolio companies with aggregate capital raised of approximately $70M, 57% of those rounds oversubscribed and 30% preempted by top-tier VCs.
The combined portfolio valuation exceeds $250M. Fund I targets a small, concentrated portfolio of high-conviction bets on Vertical AI founders with demonstrated founder-market fit. No LPs have been publicly disclosed.
Leadership
Mia Lewin is Founding Partner and is based in Seattle. She is a 3x founder CEO with two exits to large public companies, including StyleGenome (acquired by Wayfair) and Workframe (acquired by Newmark), and has held product leadership roles at Wayfair and eBay. She holds an MBA from Stanford GSB. Shail Kaveti is a partner based in San Francisco, a former senior executive at Wayfair and Amazon, and an angel investor in Perplexity. Paul Longhenry is a partner based in San Francisco with a background as an investor and operator at Tapjoy, Pinpoint Predictive, and Bolt. Jay Bartot is Founding CTO based in Seattle, a multi-time founder and former Managing Director at Madrona Venture Labs.
Investment Strategy
TFVC writes first checks at pre-seed and seed, often as the first institutional yes in a round. The team goes beyond capital, actively helping founders close rounds, refine product strategy, and make early customer connections. The firm targets founders who are VP or C-level tech executives (67% of current portfolio), technical (56%), multi-time founders (50%), or have previous exits (39%). Check sizes are small by design, reflecting the fund's focus on being a high-conviction day-one partner rather than a large-check co-investor.
Notable Investments
TFVC's early portfolio of seven companies spans consumer AI, vertical SaaS, and AI-native applications:
Other
TFVC is actively investing from Fund I and seeking founders building category-defining Vertical AI businesses for venture scale. The team is reachable directly through their website at thefounder.vc. Given the fund's size and stage focus, founders at the idea or early product stage with strong domain expertise and an AI-native thesis are the clearest fit.
United States
