Boldstart Ventures: Inception Partner for the Autonomous Enterprise
Investment Thesis
Boldstart Ventures is dedicated to partnering with bold technical founders building the autonomous enterprise—companies that reimagine how businesses operate using AI-native infrastructure, security, applications, and models. The fund's core belief is captured in their philosophy: "Before you build your team, before you write your first line of code, before you even take your first check—that's when boldstart gets to work."
Founded by Ed Sim and built over more than 10 years, Boldstart pioneered the "Inception Investing" model, backing founders from day zero before company creation, before product exists, and before first revenue. This pre-product, pre-seed focus distinguishes them from traditional seed VCs who wait for initial traction. Boldstart serves as a true believer and cofounder-like partner, collaborating with technical founders to navigate the ambiguous early path from napkin sketch to Series A.
Sector & Technology Focus
Primary Sectors:
- Enterprise Software & Infrastructure
- Developer Tools & Infrastructure
- AI/ML and Autonomous Systems
- Security & Cybersecurity
- Applications powered by AI
Technology Tags:
- AI/ML
- LLM (Large Language Models)
- Infrastructure & DevOps
- AI Agents
- Security/Cybersecurity
Notable Sub-Sectors:
- AI-native software development platforms (Tessl)
- Agentic platforms for enterprise workflows (Noded, WALDO, Keycard)
- AI security & ML model protection (Protect AI, Humanix)
- Infrastructure for AI agents (Agentuity)
- Autonomous systems and robotics (Generalist)
- Enterprise data and security (Reco, Harbr Data)
- Developer tools and observability (Grepr, Baz, MemphisDev)
- AI-powered reliability and compliance platforms
Not Invested: Boldstart explicitly avoids consumer apps, pure gaming, hardware-only plays, and non-technical founding teams.
Stage & Check Size Focus
Stage Preferences: Pre-Seed and Seed (Inception stage, typically $250K-$5M first checks)
Check Size:
- Typical range: $500K - $5M for Inception/Seed rounds
- Pre-product investments: $250K-$500K
- Early product investments: $1M-$3M
- Series A participation: $5M-$15M (selective follow-ons)
Decision Process: Partnership-based model. Ed Sim and team lead sourcing and diligence. Partnership culture emphasizes consensus and long-term founder relationships.
Recent Activity & Fund Status
Fund VII: "Inception Reloaded" ($250M)
- Announced: July 8, 2025
- Status: Actively deploying
- Focus: Backing technical founders building the autonomous enterprise
- Track record: Fund VII built on success of previous funds, with $1.1B in aggregate AUM across all funds
Recent Investments (2025-2026):
- Jan 8, 2026: Topos Bio (Seed) - Drug discovery using AI, genomics focus
- Dec 30, 2025: Announced 2025 recap with strong deployment activity
- Nov 12, 2025: Humanix (Series A co-invest) - Human threat detection/social engineering response
- Oct 21, 2025: Keycard (Series A) - Identity platform for AI agents
- Sept 24, 2025: WALDO (Series A) - Agentic platform for marketing agencies
- Aug 7, 2025: Kustomer (Series B) - Customer service automation
- July 8, 2025: Fund VII announcement
- April 28, 2025: Protect AI exits for $700M+ to Palo Alto Networks (inception investment, 2022)
Portfolio Activity:
- Multiple exits through acquisitions (Protect AI→Palo Alto Networks, Kustomer→Meta, Snyk valuations)
- 240+ portfolio companies across all fund vintages
- Heavy participation in recent autonomous enterprise and AI-focused rounds
Portfolio Highlights
Major Exits:
- Protect AI (acquired by Palo Alto Networks, 2025) - $700M+
- Kustomer (acquired by Meta, 2023) - $1B+
- Superhuman (acquired by Grammarly, 2022)
- Snyk (valuations reaching $8B+)
- Optic (acquired by Atlassian)
- Stellate (acquired by Shopify)
- Jeli (acquired by PagerDuty)
Active Portfolio (Recent Investments):
- Snyk - Developer-first security platform ($8B+ valuation)
- Clay - GTM automation with AI ($3.1B valuation, $100M Series B, 2025)
- CrewAI - Multi-agent AI automation platform
- Tessl - AI-native software development platform
- Generalist - AI robotics with OpenAI/DeepMind team
- Keycard - AI agent identity & access platform
- Humanix - AI-powered social engineering defense
- Uare.ai - Individual AI platform/digital twin
- Topos Bio - AI-driven drug discovery
- Reco - Dynamic SaaS security
- Agentuity - Cloud infrastructure for AI agents
- Grepr - Reliability platform for AI-powered world
- Baz - AI-powered code review
- Noded - AI-native customer journey platform
Portfolio Characteristics: Strong technical founders, mission-driven, many with prior exits or hyperscaler experience (Google, OpenAI, Salesforce, Dell).
Team
Core Team:
-
Ed Sim - Founder and General Partner
- 28 years in venture capital
- Co-founded Dawntreader Ventures (1998), led inception investments
- Prior notable investments: Greenplum (→EMC/Pivotal IPO), GoToMeeting (→Citrix), LivePerson (IPO)
- Ranked #1 on Business Insider Seed 100 (2023, 2024)
- Forbes Midas Seed List Top 10 (4 consecutive years: 2021-2025)
- Harvard College, D1 lacrosse player
- Newsletter author: "What's 🔥 in Enterprise IT/VC"
-
Eliot Durbin - General Partner
- 10+ years leading first rounds in enterprise startups
- Co-founded Penny Black (private investment firm, 2008)
- Founded Templates.com (→sold 2002)
- Georgetown University, Columbia postgraduate study
- Focus: Product-focused founders, GTM expertise
-
Ellen Chisa - Partner
- Joined boldstart (2021) after founding Dark (pre-product IDE)
- Prior: Lola (travel tooling), Kickstarter, Microsoft (Office Mobile)
- MBA, Harvard Business School
- BS, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Olin College
- Focus: Pre-product, dev-focused, enterprise companies
Support Team:
- Ernest Addison - Senior Associate
- Charlotte Chapanoff - Head of Marketing & Global Events
- Jennifer Moy - Chief Operating Officer
Total Team: 8 core team members
Geographic Focus
- Primary: San Francisco Bay Area, Miami, Florida (HQ)
- Secondary: US (NYC, Seattle)
- International: Selective investments in Europe and Israel
Decision Process & Timeline
Decision Process: Partnership-based consensus model Timeline: Fast decision-making for Inception stage (reported 1-2 weeks for strong founders) Warm Intro: Helpful but not strictly required; Boldstart sources actively Board Involvement: Ed Sim sits on boards of Snyk, Keycard, Tessl, Blockdaemon; typical for co-founder-like involvement
Founder Preferences
Ideal Founder Profile:
- Technical founders (engineers, product-focused developers)
- Founders solving problems they've experienced themselves
- Mission-driven with determination to see vision through
- Experience at hyperscale companies (Google, OpenAI, Salesforce, etc.) a plus
- "A chip on their shoulder"—founders who think about the problem constantly
- Preferably pre-product or very early product
Anti-Profile: Non-technical teams, consumer-focused founders, commodity builders
Lead Tendency
Leads: Consistently leads Inception/first rounds and series rounds for portfolio companies. Strong conviction and deep involvement from day one.
Investor Co-Investment Patterns
- Frequently co-invests with: Insight Partners, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Mayfield, Acrew Capital, Battery, Redpoint
- Consortium approach to larger rounds
- Maintains reserve capital for follow-on investments
Notable Programs & Initiatives
- Inception Investing - Proprietary model for pre-product funding
- Enterprise Founder Toolkit - Resources for founders building enterprise companies
- Fastforward Newsletter Archive - Thoughtful commentary on VC and startup trends
- Technical Founder Summit - Annual event (most recent: Feb 2025, "AI giveth and AI taketh away")
- MState - Co-founded enterprise blockchain lab with IBM (early investment: Fireblocks)
Fund History
- Fund I: Early stage (1998-2000s)
- Dawntreader era (1998-2013)
- Fund II-VI: Multiple vehicles through 2010s-2020s
- Opportunities Fund III: $175M (mentioned in reports)
- Fund VII: $250M (July 2025) - Latest, focused on autonomous enterprise
AUM & Capital
- Total AUM: $1.1B+ across all funds
- Fund VII: $250M (as of July 2025)
- Actively deploying: Multiple fund vintages with dry powder
Key Competitive Differentiators
- Earliest Stage Focus - Inception before product, pre-money rounds
- Cofounder-like Partnership - Deep operational involvement vs. transactional investors
- 20+ Year Track Record - Long history with multiple exits and successful fund cycles
- Technical Credibility - Team includes founders and technical experts
- Curator Network - Early adopter network to help with initial customer acquisition
- Brand & Recognition - Ed Sim's prominent position in industry (Midas List, Seed 100)