Quick Hits
Q1 was very active for us:
- We are thrilled to welcome Paul Johnson as General Partner.
- 📈 We made exactly 20 investments this quarter.
- 🇺🇸 Flex Capital former COO Dan Driscoll gets sworn in as the 26th Secretary of the Army. Huge congrats to Dan on his return to serving the American people.
OUR ASK: We are investing in the best technical founders at the seed stage. We would love to meet any top 1% entrepreneurs in your network!
What’s top of mind for us: AI Agents are eating the world
With the proliferation of AI, startups are launching faster and in greater quantities than ever. Seed round valuations appear to be higher than ever, with VCs willingly paying premiums for the prospects of explosive growth in AI businesses.
In our prior newsletter, we referenced our portfolio company Stackblitz, which launched Bolt.new and went from $0 to $20M ARR in 8 weeks, dubbed the fastest growing startup in Silicon Valley. The astonishing thing? They have 2x’d since the last newsletter!
We continue to hunt for phenomenal founders who are building the future at a rapid pace.
Accelerators continue to impress
The Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch was an inspiring bunch. This quarter, we spent a week meeting with companies and made three investments: Browser Use, Confident AI, and CopyCat AI.
We also spent time with the latest A16Z Speedrun batch and were astonished by how quickly that program has grown. We made two investments: Nilo Tech and another investment that is unannounced out of Speedrun.
Takeaways from time spent with the above accelerators:
- Everything is about AI: Most of the companies we spoke with are building AI products or leveraging AI.
- Valuations are trending higher: AI companies, whether autonomous agents, infra, or copilot, are commanding higher valuations.
- Uptick in Open-Source: Many companies in the batch are pursuing an open-source approach and getting significant traction.
Flex ecosystem in the news
- Mercury raised a $300M Series C at a $3.5Bn valuation led by Sequoia, announcement here. We participated in the round.
- Ribbon Health merged with H1: Read the announcement. Nate Maslak and Ariel Katz are both Flex Venture Partners and are now joining forces.
- Stackblitz (bolt.new) continues to grow meteorically. Check out CEO Eric Simons on Lenny’s podcast to hear the full story.
- Tailscale CEO Avery Pennarun sat with Stratechery’s Ben Thompson for an interview about building a new internet.
🚀 New Flex investments this quarter
- Blueplan AI: AI copilot for construction code compliance (e.g. egress, accessibility).
- Browser Use: Leading open-source web agent project (like OpenAI Operator) with 50k GitHub stars.
- Confident AI: Open-Source unit testing for LLM applications.
- CopyCat AI: Next-Gen RPA, powered by browser agents.
- DL Software: Web-based financial terminal offering real-time charting, live market quotes, news, and analysis.
- FinTe: Insights and collaboration platform surfacing infrastructure spend details and cost-saving opportunities. Shoutout to Venture Partner Ayan Barua.
- Legislytics: AI copilot for government affairs professionals focused on legislation changes.
- Mercury: The best banking product for your business (the one non-seed deal).
- Nilo Technologies: The future of gaming; create 3D worlds in seconds and play with friends.
- Optery: Data rights management software for removing personal information from data brokers.
- Primetime: Platform and marketplace to manage and hire vertical AI agents.
- Somo (Stealth): Upscale control system that can be installed across hotels and new multifamilies.
- String AI: End-to-end web extraction platform.
- TownHome Health: New type of urgent care for mental health episodes. Shoutout to Venture Partner Ariel Katz.
- Uniti: AI agent for lead management (email, SMS, chat), starting with commercial real estate.
- Yield Club (Stealth): Details not disclosed.
In addition, there are 4 other unannounced investments.
🎉 Welcome New Venture Partners!
This quarter, we are excited to welcome:
- Erik Zahnlecker: Product at Sierra.
- Omer Perchik: Founder and CEO of Any.do.
- Rajiv Ayyangar: CEO of Product Hunt.
Plus the 12 venture partners we onboarded in H2 2024.
🌟 Join AngelFlow, a curated community of active angel investors. Only deals with personal backing are accepted.
💡 Reminder of our Investment Sweet Spot
If you know amazing founders building ambitious companies, we want to meet them. We focus on early-stage companies that fit this profile:
- Stage: Pre-Seed/Seed
- Focus Areas: AI Applications, Dev Tools, Infrastructure, Middleware, Data, Consumer Software, Healthcare Technology
- Company Age and Valuation: Young companies (less than 2 years old) priced at reasonable valuations (ideally under $25M).
We want to meet the best founders (or soon to be founders) in your network.
