Humba Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Humba Ventures invests in hard tech and hard sectors—companies building solutions to difficult, underexplored problems that others won't tackle. Founded in 2022 by Leo Polovets (co-founder of Susa Ventures) and Anna-Sofia Lesiv, Humba focuses on deep tech and American Dynamism ventures. The fund believes that unlocking society's potential depends on founders willing to build what others won't, whether that's nuclear reactors, surgical robots, organoids, or drone swarms.
The firm is hyper-curious, drawn to challenging technical problems, and committed to founders solving "hard sector" problems through engineering and innovation. They explicitly seek out esoteric, capital-efficient businesses with strong founder-market fit.
Sector Focus
Humba's core investment areas include:
Primary Focus Areas:
- Climate and energy (geothermal, wind monitoring, battery technology, isotope enrichment)
- Robotics and manufacturing (surgical robots, drone swarms, custom robot hardware, manufacturing OS)
- Defense and aerospace (autonomous drones, cybersecurity, compliance software, satellite infrastructure, microreactors)
- Bio and agtech (organoids, mRNA optimization, precision agriculture, biomarker monitoring, oncolytic viruses)
Adjacent Areas: Mining, BCIs, space technology, and other deep tech verticals.
Unlike many generalist funds, Humba doesn't just checkmark sectors—they deeply understand the technical and market dynamics across these domains, with portfolio evidence spanning 40+ portfolio companies across five distinct portfolio themes.
Stage Focus
Humba primarily invests in pre-seed and seed rounds. The firm makes approximately 10 investments annually at $250K-$1M check sizes. They can lead or co-lead smaller pre-seed rounds and occasionally make strategic follow-on investments.
The fund has demonstrated exceptional follow-on capability: their historical seed-to-Series-A graduation rate is 60%+, roughly 3x the 20% industry average. This suggests strong company selection and founder support.
Check Size and Investment Pace
Typical Check Size: $250K - $1M Annual Investment Volume: ~10 companies per year Fund Size: Humba II is a $40M fund (closed December 2024, oversubscribed) Lead Tendency: Lead or co-lead on smaller pre-seed rounds; participate on seed rounds
For every $1 Humba invests, they help founders bring in $2-$3 on average from other top-tier investors, indicating strong ability to syndicate and attract co-investors.
Recent Activity and Fund Status
Fund Status: Actively deploying from Humba II ($40M, closed December 2024)
Recent Investments:
- October 2025: Adaptyx (biomarker monitoring hardware, Series A)
- June 2025: Participated in follow-on round for unnamed deep tech company
- Multiple 2025 investments across portfolio themes (robotics, bio, defense, climate)
Previous Fund Success: Leo and Anna-Sofia's previous fund (Susa Ventures, $750M+ AUM) backed Robinhood, Flexport, Mux, Expanse, Mashgin, and Andela. Their angel investments collectively valued at $10B+: CloudTrucks ($850M), Dusty Robotics (stealth), Hightouch ($1.2B), Mashgin ($1.5B), Placer ($1.5B), Scalyr (acquired), Veho ($1.5B), Vetcove (stealth).
Portfolio Highlights
Humba's portfolio is exceptionally deep in hard tech, with notable companies across all themes:
Automation & Manufacturing: 3D printers for carbon fiber, warehouse automation (Mytra), beverage processing, wig manufacturing, manufacturing OS (Heliux), next-gen sawmills (Lumber Manufactory), robot software infrastructure (Jacobi Robotics)
Bio & Food: Fish processing automation (Shinkei), crop load management (Orchard Robotics), biomarker monitoring (Adaptyx), mRNA optimization (Kerna Labs), organoids for drug testing (Parallel Bio), personalized cancer radiotherapy, tissue foundries (Polyphron), protein design (Diffuse Bio), blood testing (Caucell)
Climate & Energy: Geothermal baseload power (Critical Energy), distributed weather sensors (Windborne), forest monitoring (Treeswift), isotope enrichment (Hexium), battery element extraction, project permitting (Blumen Systems), hydrogen batteries
Defense & Aerospace: Finance/compliance for defense (Conductor AI), autonomous drone swarms (Swarm Aero), government contractor software (GovPort), cybersecurity risk insurance, interceptor missiles, satellite ground stations (Northwood Space), nuclear microreactors (Antares), geospatial search (Danti), security middleware (LimaCharlie)
Hardware & Other: Fast eye exams (Eyebot), beverage dispensers (Sidework), package delivery drones (Airbound), connectionless washer/dryer, decentralized exchange (Ambient Finance), K-12 math software (Edia)
The portfolio demonstrates exceptional breadth in hard tech, with most companies in stealth mode pre-product-market-fit.
Team Background and Philosophy
Leo Polovets brings deep technical credibility: 2nd engineering hire at LinkedIn, 3 years at Google's fraud detection team, 4 years at Factual (data deduping), and top national competition finishes. He co-founded Susa Ventures, which became a category-defining seed fund. His background in technical infrastructure and data problems informs Humba's robotics and defense tech focus.
Anna-Sofia Lesiv brings investment and strategic thinking expertise: roles at 8VC, Founders Fund (Peter Thiel's firm), and Bridgewater (macro investing). She's the author of Contrary Capital's influential "Foundations & Frontiers" series and leads Humba's thought leadership ("How It's Built"). Her venture and macro background brings strategic depth.
Together, they operate as highly engaged but not meddlesome partners, conducting monthly syncs with founders and providing hands-on support across strategy, fundraising, hiring, and customer introductions.
Decision Process and Timeline
Process: 3-4 meetings total
- First 1-2 meetings: With Leo and/or Anna-Sofia
- Final 1-2 meetings: With both partners together
- Preferred meeting length: 45 minutes (allows deeper discussion than typical 30-min VCs)
- Parallel due diligence: Domain expert and customer introductions during process
- Final step: Call with referenceable customer or LOI holder (if available)
Timeline: Typical diligence is 2-3 weeks
Decision Style: Partnership. Both Leo and Anna-Sofia are involved in final decisions.
What They Look For in Founders and Companies
Founder Qualities:
- Spiky expertise: Top 1% or 0.01% in something specific (not generalist founder)
- Founder-market fit: Especially critical in esoteric, technical sectors; prior experience with target customers valued highly
- Deliberate decision-making: Founders who've navigated the "idea maze" and can articulate strategic reasoning
- Operational efficiency: Prefer non-capital-intensive paths to product-market-fit
Company Qualities:
- Revenue or commercial validation before Series A (preferred)
- Clear commercial validation before Series B/C
- Technical moat and differentiation
- Founder team has navigated difficult technical problems before
Geographic Focus
Primary: San Francisco Bay Area (headquarters location) Secondary: US (with some openness to international deep tech)
Humba maintains office space in SF's Mission District (shared with Susa Ventures), available to visiting founders.
Working Relationship and Support
Monthly Touchpoints: Regular syncs with all core portfolio companies
Support Services:
- Fundraising: 60%+ seed-to-Series-A rate (3x industry average); deck iteration, designer intros, pitch practice, investor introductions (including under-the-radar domain experts)
- Strategy: Thought partnership on roadmaps, moat development, competitive positioning, GTM strategy, pricing
- Hiring: Candidate closing calls, recruiting process design, job specs, comp benchmarking, candidate sourcing
- Network: Intros to founders, domain experts, functional experts, other investors
- Customer Development: B2B customer introductions via 1st/2nd degree network
- Operational: Negotiated discounts with service providers, cloud credits, ATS/CRM software, productivity tools
- Communications: Social media amplification, "Why We're Excited" blog posts for funding announcements
Ethics and Principles
Humba emphasizes ethical investing:
- No conflicts of interest (won't invest in competitors, share decks across competitive investments)
- Always recommend strategies in company's best interest, not Humba's
- Laid-back, non-judgmental partnership approach
- Will "roll up sleeves" to help rather than add stress
Fund Positioning and Sister Relationship
Humba is a sister fund to Susa Ventures ($750M+ AUM), enabling leverage of Susa's experience backing 100+ companies across multiple rounds. The two funds share office space, operator network, and strategic thinking, while maintaining separate investment theses and deployment strategies.
Summary
Humba Ventures is a specialized deep tech seed fund focused on "hard sectors" and American Dynamism. With proven LPs from Susa Ventures, exceptionally strong portfolio outcomes (60%+ seed-to-Series-A rate, $10B+ in portfolio valuations), and two partners with rare combinations of technical credibility and venture experience, Humba represents a new model of technical depth in seed investing. Their focus on non-capital-intensive businesses, founder-market fit, and long-term technical leverage positions them to discover category-defining companies in difficult problem spaces.