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Legend in the making. Congrats @kevinhartz, great news for the ecosystem and all founders out there.
Kevin Hartz@kevinhartz
Today, we're announcing A* III, a $450 million early-stage fund. We started @A_StarVC with the simple idea to be a founder's first believer. We are generalists by sector, but specialists in the stage and craft of seed investing. We partner with founders before there is consensus, before there is traction, and often before there is even a product. We are not organized around a market thesis. We back exceptional builders and follow them into the most important categories. That matters because seed investing has changed. It is more crowded, more visible, and increasingly transactional. Too often, firms use seed to secure an option and then wait for proof before investing real time and attention. Seed has become a market of access. We believe it should be a market of conviction. We built A* around a different model. We commit early. We show up before external validation, deploying both time and capital from day zero to help founders find their first customer, make an early hire, or work through the decisions that define the company. We are selective at the start and concentrated over time. We partner with a small number of founders and deepen our commitment as their companies take shape. The best outcomes come from knowing where to go deep and having the discipline to do it. This approach has led us to companies like Ramp, Decagon, Whop, Cape, Simile, Paraform, Watney Robotics, and Mercor. We're grateful to the founders who have chosen to build with us and to the limited partners who have backed us. With this fund, A* manages over $1 billion in assets less than five years after launch. Our job remains what it was on day one: back exceptional founders early and be the partner they need when it matters most.
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@pavelprata @HummingbirdVC @barendvandenb @ileri @krakenfx @ileri and @barendvandenb are legends in the making
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Look at @HummingbirdVC (Funds I–II, 2010–2012).
Each returned 12x TVPI – top of vintage.
@barendvandenb and @ileri built them by flying to Istanbul and Athens before anyone else had a term sheet ready 👇
@krakenfx (led $5M Series A in 2014 → $1.3B+ raised, $20B pre-IPO valuation, $1.5B+ annual revenue) ◾
Peak Games ($500K seed at $2M valuation in 2010 → $1.8B @zynga acquisition ten years later)
@GramGS (pre-seed 2011, re-upped → $250M @zynga acquisition in 2018, 49x gross return) ◾
Amplidata ($40M+ raised from Intel & Western Digital → acquired by HGST in 2015)
@showpad (backed every equity round 2013–2025, $160M+ raised → acquired by Vector Capital 2025)
Back "unreasonable, brilliant, strange, damaged" founders in places others weren't looking yet. That was the whole thesis.
Who's building the next @HummingbirdVC in emerging markets?
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Fred Wilson is one of the greatest VCs of all time. He is also my new partner at @USV and I'm lucky to say that. We've known each other for years, but becoming partners felt like a reason to get to know him even better.
So a few weeks ago, we walked around Union Square and caught up about what @fredwilson has learned over nearly 40 years of VC, how AI may be making the profession obsolete, how to build an investment thesis, why he believes the Knicks will win the NBA title this year, and a few of his long held grudges.
Here's a video of that conversation, set at Union Square, Madman Espresso, the USV office, and Leon's on Broadway.
Chapters:
3:22 - That time Fred wrecked Mike on Twitter
6:01 - Pre-Internet VC in NYC
9:50 - Early Internet Investing and Raising for Flatiron Partners
11:59 - The Dot-com Crash Killed Fred’s First Firm
14:28 - Fred’s Grudge Against Coffee Shop
16:35 - How to Pick the Right Team at Right Time
18:28 - AVC blog, Gawker’s Nick Denton, TypePad.com
20:44 - Jim Kramer invented Tweeting
21:46 - Why Fred Bet on Twitter Early
23:39 - Building Agents on Claude Code and Tasklet
26:20 - Claude Mythos and Doomerism
27:27 - The Original USV Thesis
29:19 - Network Effects and Brad’s Thesis
31:29 - Coinbase: Thesis, Investment, Outcome
33:18 - Investing in Decentralized AI
34:59 - Open Source AI
36:55 - AI Kill Zone: Legal AI is Dead, Energy Investments
42:37 - USV Agents Will Replace Its Partners
47:00 - Are VC’s building themselves out of a job?
48:30 - Leon’s, NYC’s New Tech Watering Hole
50:52 - Generative Art
53:18 - SOLIENNE: AI Artist trained by Kristi Coronado
54:25 - What About AI Scares Fred
55:40 - Societal Backlash to AI
58:10 - Advice to Early Career VCs: There’s More Risk in Not Doing Deals
1:00:48 - Fred’s Biggest Regrets: Saying No Because of Price
1:04:17 - Fred’s Bold Prediction for the Knicks and the Mets
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The most contested gift in any VC office this Christmas.
Get your Legends of Venture Capital card game.
shop.wearefirm.com/products/legen…
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@rexsalisbury @kevinhartz @ncsh @pitdesi @mattturck @semil @ileri @cyantist @chrija @iamjakestream Typo because of too much excitement typing down our favs 🥲
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@Firmcap @kevinhartz @ncsh @pitdesi @mattturck @semil @ileri @cyantist @chrija its BTV... and @iamjakestream is the legit one ;)
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Proven GPs and future legends in the making
A* @kevinhartz
Adjacent @ncsh
BTC @pitdesi
Firstmark @mattturck
Haystack @semil
Hummingbird @ileri
Long Journey @cyantist
Point Nine @chrija
Colin Gardiner@ColinGardiner
Who are Tier 1 VC funds? (updated) Sequoia Benchmark a16z Founders Fund Khosla Accel Lightspeed General Catalyst NEA Kleiner Perkins Index Thrive GV USV Bessemer Greylock First Round Insight Contenders / rising stars / sector-dependent: Menlo Craft 8VC Sutter Hill Conviction Elad Gil Neo Eclipse HF0 Ribbit Lux Redpoint Forerunner Coatue Still not ranking them, and sector/stage matters a lot. This reflects comments from my last post. Who is still obviously missing or in the wrong spot?
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tier 1 pre/seed-only vcs:
- first round
- floodgate
- susa
- zetta
- homebrew
who else?
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@murphcapital Thanks, honor coming from one of the most on point new voices in the industry out there!
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A limited edition quartet card game featuring 32 iconic VC investors.
@Firmcap is building culture around venture in a way nobody else in the industry is.
Firm@Firmcap
2/ We spent months studying these people who shaped our industry. The result: Legends of Venture Capital, a limited edition quartet card game featuring 32 iconic investors across eight categories, from Founding Fathers and OGs to Seed Savants and Europe's Finest. Our first drop consists of a limited 100 individually numbered copies.
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Legendary public launch by @Firmcap! The difference between a fund and a firm.
Firm@Firmcap
1/ Venture capital was built by legends. Arthur Rock financed the Traitorous Eight and forged Silicon Valley. Don Valentine backed Apple and Cisco and built Sequoia. Marc Andreessen pioneered the full stack VC model. Peter Thiel wrote the first check into Facebook. They built enduring firms and became legends of venture capital.
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An emerging fund manager is not a VC..... he is a startup founder.
Raising capital, building a brand, a USP, storytelling, assembling the right team, finances in order, regulatory compliance, runway, failing, reiterating, highs, lows, laughter, tears. I love the game. I love the journey. Im locked into the hypothetical yet inevitable destination.
Yet I am wise enough to know that I am not something more than what I actually am. A VC title means nothing.......It's the man behind the title that needs investigating.
Title chasers are misguided with their approach. Anyone ego tripping and putting themselves on a pedestal, should be avoided.
If you can get an authentic emerging manager to back you and your vision, most likely the emotional relativity resonates deeply across all parties.
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@bilalfarooqui 3 times #1 Midas List: Neil Shen
More Legends of Venture Capital you can find in the 32 cards Quartet game that we just launched:
shop.wearefirm.com/products/legen…
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vc goats:
- arthur rock
- don valentine
- john doerr
- michael moritz
- bill draper
- tom perkins
- eugene kleiner
- marc andreessen
- ben horowitz
- paul graham
- peter thiel
who am i missing?
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@pavelprata the arena was waiting for us. appreciate the shout out @pavelprata!
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@arian_ghashghai @Firmcap Yes we need draper in there and a few others
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Going through all the cards in the @Firmcap VC deck
Awesome stuff, but we’re def missing a Draper in either OGs or Founding Fathers! Absolute royalty of the game
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Great EM-compatible LPs don’t get much public love - @Firmcap by @onemoremeier is one of them and deserves all of it.
Firm@Firmcap
1/ Venture capital was built by legends. Arthur Rock financed the Traitorous Eight and forged Silicon Valley. Don Valentine backed Apple and Cisco and built Sequoia. Marc Andreessen pioneered the full stack VC model. Peter Thiel wrote the first check into Facebook. They built enduring firms and became legends of venture capital.
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@TurnerNovak @Firmcap Smart launch tactic with the card game. It simplifies onboarding and sparks real user engagement fast. Congrats Firmcap.
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More people should launch their thing with a card game
Congrats @Firmcap!
Firm@Firmcap
1/ Venture capital was built by legends. Arthur Rock financed the Traitorous Eight and forged Silicon Valley. Don Valentine backed Apple and Cisco and built Sequoia. Marc Andreessen pioneered the full stack VC model. Peter Thiel wrote the first check into Facebook. They built enduring firms and became legends of venture capital.
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