Harlem Capital

Since 2015, Harlem Capital has been focused on changing who gets to win. Harlem Capital is a VC firm that backs exceptional founders with the drive to build generational companies. We don’t bet on trends, we bet on excellence. All winners welcome.

Most founders obsess over the technical details, the roadmap, the edge cases. But in the early days, all of that changes anyway. What investors are really reading is your trajectory, your conviction, and whether this is the moment they need to move. youtube.com/watch?v=44JV6M…

🔑 Most founders walk into a VC meeting trying to prove they are not flawed. @MitchJones_, Founder and CEO of @Lavapayments , says that is the wrong game entirely. The goal is not to defend your weaknesses. It is to make a VC stop and think: this is what we need to do right now.

📢 New energy across HCP! From fresh Winners Welcome eps to new perspectives on AI & commerce, it’s been a strong April. Highlights: 🎧 New podcast eps 🛒 The Age of Intelligent Commerce ⚡ Portco wins: Lava, Propense & Accessgrid Read the newsletter harlemcapital.substack.com/p/hcp-newslett…

Henri's hypothesis: a correction is coming. Not because AI is not real. Because the discipline around how we measure revenue has not kept up. Read the full blog: forbes.com/sites/forbeseq…

📊 Henri (@hpierrejacques), HCP Managing Partner, is trusting founder revenue numbers less than at any point in his investing career. That includes 2021. LTM, run rate, CARR, and non-binding revenue are not interchangeable. The AI moment has made this gap wider than ever.

And In case you missed it, read more on our perspective on what will emerge in this category next: harlem.capital/the-age-of-int…

In the next few years, ecommerce will take another massive leap forward toward intelligent commerce, driven by the rise of consumer AI and shifting behavior. This next era will redefine shopping whether through conversations with agents or new interfaces that deliver exactly what they want, when they need it. For founders, this unlocks an entirely new layer of opportunity across intelligent ecommerce infrastructure. It’s still early and the next generation of winners in intelligent commerce are being built right now. Here’s our initial outlook on 25 companies shaping the future of this category.

10 years and we finally got our name on the wall. Crazy to see it after starting in WeWork Harlem

The longer you stay in it, the sharper you get, and the better equipped you are to solve problems that once felt out of reach. Endurance is a competitive advantage. Listen to the full conversation: youtu.be/44JV6MuUbF8?si…

💬 When @MitchJones_ of @Lavapayments meets a founder, he asks one question: what is your most important job? His answer to his own question is direct: don't let the business die.

What Mitchell and HCP Partner Brandon (@wallstreetpaper) got into: 🔹 What VCs are actually looking for 🔹 Founders spend more time pitching than preparing 🔹 Second-time founder edge and AI payments infrastructure Watch the full episode: youtube.com/watch?v=44JV6M…

💭 What's the most important job as a founder? @MitchJones_ of @Lavapayments has one answer: don't let the business die. New Winners Welcome episode is live. #PoweredbyGunderson

Subscribe to our youtube channel: @HarlemCapital" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@HarlemCapital

🎙 Tomorrow on Winners Welcome: @MitchJones_ , founder of @Lavapayments We talk survival, second-time founder advantages, and why AI agents need a new payments infrastructure. Drops at 8:00 AM ET on YouTube.

🤖 Most people use Claude like a search bar. This session is for the ones who want to go further. Get Your Claude on Steroids: a hands-on building session for finance professionals during #NYFinTechWeek Hosted with Lava. Spots are limited: luma.com/h6kp70z2

The best founders do not wait for clarity. They go find it. Watch the full episode with Kate: Youtube: youtube.com/watch?v=PD8Yoc… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/1eY8RL…

📝 @_KateRyder's founder superpower: information brokering. She calls everyone, collects answers, and finds the story that points the direction. When people disagree, she does not freeze. She figures out the narrative.

The intelligent commerce market goes from $3.6B to $282.6B by 2034. The infrastructure layer is still being built. That is the opportunity. If you are building in this space, we'd love to connect! Check out the full deck: harlem.capital/wp-content/upl…

🛒 The future of commerce is not a better search bar. It is a system that already knows what you need. We just published our intelligent commerce thesis. Here is what we see: harlem.capital/the-age-of-int…