Lobster Capital Research
Investment Thesis
Lobster Capital is a San Francisco venture fund that invests only in Y Combinator companies. Founder and Managing Partner Gabriel Jarrosson built the firm on a single filter: if a company did not go through YC, he does not back it. The pitch is statistical. The firm cites that roughly 6.5% of YC companies become unicorns, about a quarter of YC unicorns pass $10B, around 45% raise a Series A against a 33% industry average, and over half are still operating after ten years. Lobster says it concentrates on the "top 2%" of each batch, the few companies showing real traction, a path to efficient growth, and founders who compound, and passes on the rest. It accepts that YC pricing runs high; Jarrosson told TechCrunch he will pay a $20M to $40M seed valuation if the company can plausibly become a unicorn.
Stage Focus
Seed, mostly invested around or just after a YC batch. The portfolio page lists companies from S20 through S26 and a "P26" cohort. Notable example: it invested in RonanRx at a $50M valuation ten days before Demo Day, where the company raised at $100M. It does not do uncapped deals, per Jarrosson's public posts.
Check Size
Not published. The debut fund is $12M (closed 2025, above an $8M target), and the firm and its syndicate say they have deployed $40M+ across 100+ YC startups since 2020, which implies average checks in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars. A larger second fund was reported in SEC filings in September 2025. Check size min and max are left unset because no source states them.
Lead Tendency
Unknown. Public material describes participation in YC-priced rounds and a syndicate model rather than leading; no source states a lead or follow stance.
Recent Activity
The portfolio page shows 49 companies, with the most recent batches heavily represented: S26 (RonanRx, Allia Health), P26 (Thomas, FinalDose, BioStack Platforms, Synphony, Juno), W26 (Panta, Perfectly, Voxel Energy, Pocket, Didit) and F25 (SellRaze, LunaBill, Sunflower). The firm publishes a Substack series on YC batches (for example a W26 investor guide), a YouTube channel and a weekly-style newsletter. Its October 2026 posts cover pricing at seed and the first question it asks YC founders. Tracxn lists it as active with 46 tracked investments as of September 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
Portfolio companies mentioned as strong performers include Crustdata (reported $10M ARR, adding $2M in 30 days), Better Auth, Onlook, Tella, Sync., VideoGen, Ionworks, Array Labs and Perseus Defense. Jarrosson says one portfolio company passed $10M ARR and another $20M ARR, both profitable and still on their seed. Via the earlier syndicate and fund he cites two unicorns and several "soonicorns" including Jeeves, Baubap, FlutterFlow, Metriport, Alinea and Jiga.
Sector Mix
The portfolio is AI-heavy and broad: digital health and healthcare AI (RonanRx, Allia Health, Juno, Paratus Health, LunaBill, Joon), enterprise and AI software (Orange Slice, ZeroEntropy, Lyra, Motives, Keye, PointOne), developer tools (Better Auth, a0.dev, Onlook), fintech and payments (OneText, Bluedot, SoloSuit, Sunset), insurance (Panta, Harper), biotech (FinalDose, MantleBio), plus hardware, defense, robotics, energy and games.
Team
Gabriel Jarrosson is the General Partner and Managing Partner: a French engineer turned YouTuber turned investor, a self-described 7x founder with 3 exits and 4 failures, investing in startups since 2013. He ran one of Europe's larger angel syndicates and has 40,000+ LinkedIn followers. No other investment team members are named on the site.
Decision Process
Appears to be a solo GP decision. Jarrosson describes a two-stage process: a traction threshold, informed by an internal system that tracks signals across every YC batch, and then pricing that follows growth rate rather than current revenue. He has overruled his own first instinct on data (RealRoots) and passed when traction was short (Lumeria).
Founder Preferences
Founders with early customer love, efficient growth and relentless execution; technical and AI-native teams; founders who compound. The firm leans on its reputation among YC founders on Bookface and on Jarrosson's founder background to win allocations.
Geographic Focus
YC companies globally, with the firm based in San Francisco. Jarrosson's French background and European syndicate suggest some European reach, but the portfolio is overwhelmingly US-based.
Funding Model
Lobster raises from LPs, including five family offices and two billionaires per its site, and runs an LP portal and rolling introductions for new allocators.