Indie Research
Investment Thesis
Indie (indie.vc) is a generalist, founder-focused seed fund built by Bryce Roberts. Its stated premise is that the zero-interest-rate playbook of venture treadmills and growth at all costs has aged badly, and that the future belongs to builders running real businesses with less time spent fundraising and more spent on fundamentals. Indie points to Amazon, Microsoft and Google, and to newer companies such as Midjourney, Vanta and Zapier, as following that playbook. The firm says it aims to be the last round of funding a founder needs to raise, which gives the founder maximum leverage in any later financing or acquisition conversation.
The firm is also explicitly interested in small-team, high-revenue companies. Its Facts page says it is obsessed with the idea that someone will build a business doing $100M in revenue with fewer than ten employees, and it wants to partner with the founder who does it. It describes itself as more A24 than a16z.
Sector Focus
Indie calls itself decidedly generalist. It cites success across sectors from internet infrastructure and security to consumer hardware and services, and names programmable money, LLMs changing how people create, computational biology and new computer interfaces as areas of interest. The disclosed portfolio spans developer tools (Linear), AI security (Dreadnode), healthcare services (Nice Healthcare) and AI applications (Cimento).
Stage Focus
Indie is typically the first investor on a cap table. It will meet founders who are pre-product, pre-revenue, or already at multiple millions in revenue. Third-party profiles list pre-seed and seed activity, with recent deals at pre-seed.
Check Size
The Facts page states checks of $250K to $2M. Third-party profiles show a smaller historical range ($100K to $1M). The firm prefers to lead or co-lead but will participate as an angel in rounds with an existing lead. Instruments are SAFEs or equity, with no fancy terms, paybacks or earn-outs, though it is open to alternative structures such as crypto tokens.
Lead Tendency
It prefers to lead or co-lead and sometimes follows an existing lead. Treated here as both.
Recent Activity
The firm launched as an experiment inside OATV in 2016 (an earlier Indie.vc program, with its own fund model, wound down in 2021) and became a stand-alone fund in 2023, with Fund I reported closed and investing from 2024. Dealroom lists recent deals including Cimento (pre-seed, May 2026, lead; an earlier pre-seed in July 2025), Rocketable and Linear. Linear raised a Series C in June 2025. Third-party databases count about 21 investments. A Crunchbase snippet mentions an Indie.vc Fund II, which this research could not confirm from a primary source.
Portfolio Highlights
The firm's website has no portfolio page; the /portfolio URL returns only a signup page. Names below come from third-party profiles (Waveup, Dealroom, PitchBook, Caplight) and are not confirmed on the firm's own site. Notable companies: Linear (software development tool), Dreadnode (AI security), Nice Healthcare, Cimento and Rocketable. The Facts page also lists OATV's earlier backed companies (Figma, Fastly, Foursquare, Planet, Devoted Health, Codecademy, CTRL-Labs, Expanse, Fetch Robotics, Fitnesskeeper, Hipcamp, Misfit Wearables, Signal Sciences). Those are OATV investments, not Indie fund investments, and are not submitted as the firm's portfolio.
Team
- Bryce Roberts, Founder and Managing Partner: began venture investing in 2001, founded OATV in 2005 with Tim O'Reilly and Mark Jacobsen, and based in Salt Lake City. Indie says it is an investment committee of one.
Decision Process
Solo GP. The firm says it is an investment committee of one and moves in hours or days, not weeks. No board seat is required.
Founder Preferences
Founders building real, capital-efficient businesses, with a unique take on an emergent technology or opportunity. The firm optimizes for accountability over advice, offers monthly one-on-ones or ad hoc help, and describes itself as irrationally available.
Geographic Focus
No stated geographic restriction. The firm is based in Salt Lake City and portfolio companies are spread across the US.