A*

A* is an early stage venture capital firm guiding outliers from idea to IPO

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

Congrats to my co-founder at A* and partner @kevinhartz for his Midas debut. First check into airbnb, pinterest, decagon, ramp and just getting started!
https://t.co/haA34b0ZIi

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

Thanks @technology for having me on to discuss A* and our new fund! @kevinhartz @GGuptaSF @vik_rama @jhwindmueller @A_StarVC

https://t.co/pOAbyZIjk0

[Jack Altman @jaltma]

My guests on Uncapped this week are @kevinhartz and @BennettSiegel, co-founders of the early stage VC firm A*.

They've backed companies like Notion, Mercor, Ramp, Decagon, Similie, and many more. They also announced a new $450m fund today.

We discussed the state of venture capital firms in the current AI cycle, what it means for seed specialists, trends with great founders, and what they're seeing in AI.

Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(0:25) The A* Capital story
(1:16) Why big funds went into seed
(7:50) The mother of all bubbles
(10:46) Why founders are getting younger
(13:00) Mapping talent, not markets
(16:31) The rise of AI researcher founders
(19:16) Why seed investing is so hard
(22:54) Concentration and venture returns
(27:34) The AI rollup craze
(31:15) AI vs traditional software
(33:15) Robotics and the future of AI
(35:39) What’s next for A*

[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.

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

https://t.co/mzs6pL8yHD

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

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.

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

We knew we had to be in business with @HarryMellsop, @AlexLangshur and the team at @antiochrobotics as soon we met them. They are a second time, highly technical group of founders with deep expertise in robotics.

The physical AI revolution will be multiples larger than what we’ve seen with LLMs. By shifting development and evaluation of autonomous systems out of the physical world and into simulation, Antioch is empowering hardware teams to ship product at software-speed. We’re excited to lead their seed round.

https://t.co/7NSWKEJG1H

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

The longer a bull market continues, the more skeptics are sidelined in investment committee.

If every deal you say no to gets marked up by another firm, you look wrong in the short term. Institutionally people start to say “we should have done all of these deals” and the skeptics get quieter and quieter.

This is the reality at most VC firms today.

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

In the two years since we led the Series B, Cape has emerged as America's leading privacy-first mobile carrier. The safety and reliability of our telecom networks has moved from a fringe topic to a core national security concern, propelling Cape's explosive growth as the primary partner of the USG. We're excited to double down again in the Series C, alongside our friends at Bain, IVP and 01 Advisors @JohnDoyleCape @CapeCellular @kevinhartz @SaanyaOjha
https://t.co/SaLzeGJ71W

[Eugen @EugenAlpeza]

We’re out of stealth.

Today, we’re also announcing our Series A led by @sequoia , @8vc , and @A_StarVC , bringing our total funding to $30M+.

Every enterprise needs to teach their AI how to do work. We build agents that reverse engineer enterprise processes, then run them.

Read about the future of learning in the enterprise: https://t.co/ONBjA7MEEJ

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

We led an early-stage round in Whop in 2023 and have loved partnering with @cultured, @czoob3 and @jsharkey to deliver foundational infrastructure for this generation of entrepreneurs building on the internet.

Many of the best internet and payment businesses started on the “fringes” before they became mainstream and inevitable. This was true with Whop, and today their platform powers entrepreneurs across every vertical, enabling founders to monetize their talent, IP and unique audiences as AI democratizes the creation and distribution of content online.

Since our investment, revenue has grown >20x 🚀 Congrats to the Whop and Tether teams on this milestone, and it’s always great to work with our friends at @BainCapVC, @merritthummer.

[Simile @simile_ai]

https://t.co/eKKz1ewGex

[A* @A_StarVC]

RT @BennettSiegel: Investing in LLMs has been a great way to deploy big dollars profitably, but less so to earn outsized venture multiples…

[Kevin Hartz @kevinhartz]

Turns out we’ll be just fine here in the valley and nationwide! Congratulations to my dear friend Kevin Warsh on being appointed chairman of the Fed

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

Thrilled for Kevin Warsh to be riding shotgun at the Fed! @kevinhartz

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

Less than 2 years for this prediction to come true :)

Congrats @thejessezhang and @AshwinSreenivas on another amazing milestone with @DecagonAI closing their Series D at $4.5B!

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

Excited to share more about what we have quietly been building at A* over the last few years. I'm grateful to our investors and founders for the opportunity. We are just getting started. @kevinhartz @GGuptaSF @vik_rama @jhwindmueller
https://t.co/UzYWKLJvPI

[Bennett Siegel @BennettSiegel]

The definition of a bubble is asset prices rising with no relationship to their fundamentals.

Multiple tranched financing rounds closed over the last few weeks where the second tranche is at a meaningfully higher valuation than the first. In most cases, the investors blend their capital and ownership, so it doesn’t affect them.

The rationale is that the company can now issue larger equity dollar packages to compete for talent with OAI, Anthropic etc.

Prospective hires should beware.

[A* @A_StarVC]

We're excited to share that we are expanding the
@A_StarVC team and looking for the next great investor!

Apply using the below link👇👇

https://t.co/MtKILPlXFO