Active Capital

Backing technical founders building the future of AI software, infrastructure & intelligence. Email is best: [email protected]

[Active Capital @activecapitalvc]

Backing AI-native founders building the future of software

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

I’m excited and humbled to share that we’ve closed our third fund at Active Capital: $28M+ to invest in the future of enterprise software and cloud infrastructure.

I started Active Capital seven years ago with a belief: founders deserve early capital from someone who's walked in their shoes. Someone who truly understands the challenges of starting and building a great company.  With this new fund, we’re continuing to invest in the kinds of companies I helped build, many of which are building in underdog cities across America.

As an entrepreneur, I’ve helped lead companies through major shifts—from old-school software to SaaS, cloud, and mobile. Today, I couldn’t be more excited to back the next generation of founders who are re-shaping software and infrastructure in the AI era.

The strategy is working. Our first fund, raised in 2018, has already returned nearly 70% of capital, with a total value-to-paid-in (TVPI) multiple—meaning the current value relative to capital invested—now exceeding 4x.

While this is the largest fund we’ve raised to date, it’s still smaller than most funds you’ll read about. When I started Active Capital, I purposefully decided that part of our strategy would be to raise multiple similar-sized, $25M-ish funds—to stay focused, master our craft, and resist the urge to go upmarket.  This is a very unique strategy in venture capital as the temptation to raise bigger and bigger funds is extreme.

That said, small numbers add up too. This new fund brings us to over $100M in assets under management, across three similar-sized funds and several individual investments in breakout companies.

Since 2018, we’ve backed 50+ startups across the country, in cities like San Antonio, Austin, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Atlanta, Boulder, Portland and of course… NYC & SF.

Some of our early exits include:
- Altru, acquired by iCIMS
- Cloudsnap, acquired by Paylocity
- Finmark, acquired by https://t.co/bjbNMcLrQv
- Makeswift, acquired by BigCommerce
- RemoteTeam, acquired by Gusto

What we invest in:
- Lead or co-lead pre-seed rounds
- $500K–$1M checks in $500K–$3M rounds
- Strong preference for smaller rounds, low burn, and extreme focus on product market fit
- Technical founders, solo or team, building in cities across America

More about Active:
- Pre-seed firm focused on enterprise software & cloud infrastructure
- Solo GP firm & awesome team with 15+ years working together
- Repeatable, similar-sized funds; focused on mastery, not scale
- We’re long term investors–we don’t chase early markups or depend on secondary sales
- Backed entirely by successful founders, families, entrepreneurs, and operators—no institutional capital

I’m especially grateful to our investor base—from former Rackers, to incredibly successful families and entrepreneurs in San Antonio, to founders and friends I’ve met along the way… and of course, plenty of Virginia Tech Hokies. THANK YOU!

If you’re building something bold at the pre-seed stage, let’s connect.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Just funded our latest pre-seed investment. Very excited about this one. A few datapoints:

- $500K first check
- $10M round that closed in weeks
- Repeat founders, SF-based
- Real-time auditory reasoning
- Built for AI in the physical world

We’re averaging one new pre-seed investment per month. If you’re building in our space, please get in touch. Email is best.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Fathom is being acquired by @Superhuman!

We first invested in Fathom in 2021… before the “ChatGPT moment”... and before every tech company tried to build its own notetaker.

Unlike so many startups from the 2021 era, Richard and team navigated the last five years extraordinarily well.

Fathom is an awesome product that I use every day, and it continues to get better and better.

Congrats to Richard, the Fathom team, and everyone involved. I love the roadmap and I’m pumped for what’s ahead!

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

I love this work. I get to back cracked, generational founders solving the world's most important problems.

Working on something but haven't told anyone yet? I want to be the first check.

Writing $500k first checks, 10 investments YTD

DM me the thing you can't stop working on

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

I raised a $2M "concept fund" before raising funds from LPs I didn't know. Got to start somewhere...

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

Insane shipping speed + innovation in the space =🚀🚀🚀

@ycombinator Demo day watch out!

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Just funded our latest investment:

– $500k check
– Two technical founders
– SF-based
– Custom, security-first training data
– Seven figures in revenue the last 30 days

That's eight investments this year and we're backing at least one new team every month.

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

Active Capital exists to write first checks and put founders in business.

If you're building AI-native business software or infrastructure, we want to be your first yes.

DMs open.

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

Landed back from SF Thursday night.

Signed a $500k SAFE Saturday night with a founder I met on the trip.

More on this one soon.

Reminder: we write $500k first checks into the most technical founders & ambitious founders with an irrational level of commitment to building something great.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Some good insights in here. A few observations from my experience in case they’re helpful to other emerging managers:

1/ We’re diversifying as much as ever. Picking winners at pre-seed is really hard. But we back founders really early, and when we’re able to build strong relationships, there are almost always opportunities to put more capital to work as the winners emerge over time.

2/ We’ve had one fund returner (multiple times over), and I can attest… they’re really hard to come by. We’ve also had a lot of solid exits that return 10-25% of a fund. Those are great outcomes, but it takes a lot of them to add up to strong returns for investors.

3/ I’ve always told our LPs we’re going to stay small and raise multiple similarly sized funds. We’ve iterated on a lot of things over the years, but not this. The temptation to raise bigger and bigger funds is huge, but we’re staying disciplined. When we have breakout winners, we’ll raise SPVs. Our LPs have really liked this model.

4/ We’ve been fortunate to generate solid DPI even without exposure to the $100B exits or trillion-dollar IPOs. I think we’ll have a few of those one day too though!

5 & 6/ I didn’t come up through the traditional apprenticeship model, and maybe that’s one reason we’ve had more success raising from builders, operators, and entrepreneurial family offices than institutions. I’m incredibly grateful for all of our investors!!

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

New algo, new request for startups.

We write $500K - $1M checks.

Backing in AI-native founders building the future of software.

We are founders turned investors.

Doing 1 new deal each month.

Incredibly ambitious ideas only.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Just sent our monthly LP update. We’ve invested in 25 companies over the last 24 months. Still have ⅓ of fund to deploy. Should be a fun second half of the year!!

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

We just committed 500k to a founder I’ve backed twice before. Beyond excited to back her again.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

Just wired our fifth pre-seed investment of 2026:

– $750K lead check
– Three founders out of Michigan Medicine + Johns Hopkins
– AI operating layer for hospital transformation
– Live pilots & conversions in some of the largest health systems in the world
– Eyeing relo to SF or NYC

Reminder: we're backing at least one new team every month with $500K to $1M checks.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

We are also investing in at least one pre-seed company per month. We invested in two this week alone.

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

Testing something new and a little fun.

Send us a US‑based pre‑seed software/infra founder raising their first round.

If we do the deal, you’re coming with me to F1 Austin in October – pit access.

Only founders you’re so impressed by that you’d join or angel in.

Email me the deal in the next 24h.

First small experiment toward a scout program..

[Khaled @dsog]

YES! @patmatthews is awesome. It’s great to have him as an investor.

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

Builders like Dom are exactly who I want to back.

If you're running product/tech at a fast growing AI company, owning real things, and itching to start your own — I want to be your first $500k to get you going.

Stop shipping someone else's rocketship. Go build yours.

[Chris Saum @christophersaum]

300+ founder DMs from this post.

Best ones were under 50 words.

-What you're building
-Why you
-One thing no one else has — team, traction, or insight

No long paragraphs or bombarding with links.

That's it.

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

I’m excited to talk to the @HustleFundVC community this Friday in SF. I’ve spent most of my career as an entrepreneur and my firm @ActiveCapitalVC is now investing 500k-1M into at least one new pre-seed team per month. Happy to talk about anything!

[Pat Matthews @patmatthews]

I’ve never understood why most VC firms are structured as committees. We’d never invest in a committee-run company!