Best Pre-Seed Developer Tools & Infrastructure Investors 2026

Enterprise software companies leveraging modern cloud infrastructure, open source, and AI to solve infrastructure and application challenges. Best companies come from technical founders with deep expertise in their domain.

Network-powered startups connecting people and businesses through software tools and platforms

Pre-seed and seed-stage investments in AI, developer tools, robotics, and the future of work, led by operator-investors with deep technical and operational expertise. We write small checks early and provide hands-on mentorship grounded in our operating experience. We believe the best opportunities exist before anyone else is looking.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology will fundamentally restructure global financial systems. We invest in category-defining protocols and companies that reshape trillion-dollar markets through permissionless finance, technical innovation, and new economic paradigms enabled by blockchain. Particular focus on execution layers, DeFi infrastructure, stablecoins, payments, and emerging categories like DePIN, FHE, and crypto-AI intersection.

Heavybit invests in unique founders with transformative visions who are redefining how teams build, deploy, secure, and scale enterprise software. They back founders from Day 0, before the broader market recognizes their potential.

Backing transformative founders building exceptional companies across all sectors

Research-driven web3 investor backing contrarian crypto infrastructure, DeFi, GameFi, AI x crypto, prediction-market, and protocol opportunities where mechanism design and quantitative modeling can create durable network effects.

Invest earlier than most other investors and make decisions quickly. We focus on ambitious founders building unusually great companies in SaaS, developer tools, fintech, open source, and marketplaces. Our smaller check sizes allow founders to maintain control and enable us to deploy efficiently across 100+ companies.

We back the foundational layers of progress. Developer platforms that accelerate creation. Robot operating systems that make autonomy real. Simulation engines training the next generation of AI. Formal verification securing billions in value. Foundational systems that quietly compound—built by founders who see elegance in complexity and possibility in constraints.

Partner with ambitious founders building category-winning companies. We believe great founders who understand execution, customer obsession, and operational excellence can build transformative companies. We provide capital, operational guidance, network access, and strategic partnership—not just funding.

First institutional check for technical founders building the future of B2B software. We provide capital and hands-on platform support at the pre-seed stage.

We empower builders of the open economy through capital, market intelligence, and community support. We specifically back unconventional and eccentric founders building the next generation of Web3 infrastructure, DeFi protocols, and applications that reshape how humans organize economically.

Early-stage fintech, B2B software, enterprise SaaS, digital infrastructure, payments, embedded finance, and AI workflow infrastructure companies across the US, UK, Europe, and Israel.

The best way to find and support AI companies is to be one ourselves. We back independent thinkers building real systems before consensus forms, partnering as radical learning partners from day one.

We partner with extraordinary entrepreneurs building product-first companies that redefine their categories. In the US, we focus on transformative AI and enterprise software. In India, we back digital-native businesses solving local market problems at scale.

Investing in 'Beautiful Software' — software where code architecture mirrors user intent so cleanly that complexity disappears. Backs founders with high 'motive force,' the internal drive that sustains motion through uncertainty. Believes beauty compounds: quality code attracts quality engineers, thoughtful design creates passionate users, and passionate users become evangelists.

Transformative innovation in crypto emerges from disciplined investment in cutting-edge infrastructure, protocols, and financial applications. We partner with founders advancing the digital asset economy alongside deep operational support through Galaxy's institutional infrastructure.

Crypto represents a once-in-a-generation platform shift that will fundamentally transform financial services, gaming, energy, and many other sectors through decentralized infrastructure. We partner with founders building sustainable crypto foundations from day one.

Crypto-native teams solving fundamental Web3 problems, partnering on- and off-chain at earliest stages. Technical excellence, ecosystem building, and long-term Internet transformation through decentralized technologies.

We invest in infrastructure companies before they exist. Technical founders building structural solutions that enable entire new categories of software. We don't try to be 'value add' - we only succeed if we make a genuine difference through deep technical partnership, founder development, and community building.

Crypto represents a long-term technological transformation rearchitecting global commerce. We back the boldest builders from seed through scale, combining deep regulatory expertise with institutional reach to help founders navigate policy uncertainty and drive adoption.

Invest in exceptional new-frontier technology companies that bring liquidity and efficiency to antiquated industries.

Invest in only two kinds of technologies: those that move humanity toward utopia, and those that hold the line against oblivion. Back n-of-1 visions for an era of Black Swans—unconventional companies solving civilization-scale problems that others dismiss as too early, too risky, or too misunderstood.

Increase odds of success for product-obsessed founding teams on day zero. Invest in initially fringe markets that can become mainstream, large markets that feel broken, and science-fiction-like visions. Work with founders before market validation is obvious.

Back ambitious teams with strong learning and execution capacities across all sectors, stages, and geographies. Technology-enabled businesses preferred. Volume-based, founder-centric investment philosophy.

The next generation of category-defining software will be built by technical founders at the earliest stage, with AI infrastructure, developer workflows, and security primitives as core battlegrounds. Vermilion wants to be the first meaningful yes for teams that can ship quickly and learn from customers immediately.

Kindred backs visionary and relentless founders building the future using technology and science at the earliest stages, often helping form companies before they exist. With Kindred Ventures IV and Kindred Selector II, the firm is emphasizing the novel intelligence frontier: AGI-capable models and harnesses that extend human capabilities, new AI-native consumer and enterprise experiences, physical AI, compute, infrastructure, energy, science, outer space, and inner space.

Backing the builders of the next layer of computing across AI infrastructure, defense, biotech, and American dynamism. Former 'Software is Eating the World' thesis evolved to 'AI is Eating Software'. Partners with technical founders building foundation models, cloud systems, and infrastructure for the AI era.

Venture capital is the most powerful economic engine the world has ever seen. We back audacious founders solving humanity's hardest challenges through category-creating innovations. We embrace big risks and reject short-termism, committing to 15+ year partnerships with founders who have long-term vision and relentless determination.

K5 Global backs category-defining companies from inception to IPO. The firm leverages exceptional networks across media, entertainment, politics, finance, and technology to provide strategic value beyond capital. We believe the best companies are built by founders who can access world-class talent, capital, and strategic relationships.

Anabel Paksoy actively looks to invest in early-stage startups at Day 0, providing hands-on support tailored to the founder's unique needs. She focuses on founders who are passionate about solving specific problems, and investments are made quickly to take advantage of timely opportunities.

Israeli engineers have a distinct competitive advantage in building deep infrastructure products. We partner with technical founders from day one to transform excellence into category-defining companies. Data is the critical leverage point for enterprise AI.

Technical founders building at the frontier of AI/ML infrastructure and applications. Purpose-built for the AI era, backing engineers who code solving previously technically impossible problems.

Cota Capital invests in 'net new' technologies — visionary ideas that either were never before possible or solve problems that didn't exist before. Knowledge is the true capital. The firm backs early-stage enterprise technology companies where deep operational expertise, competitive intelligence, and network access can provide compounding advantage beyond the check.

User-owned technology empowered by distributed systems and cryptography enables people to reclaim control from intermediaries. We invest in systems that reduce reliance on centralized institutions and give users control, privacy, and access to global markets.

Founders backing founders. Flex Capital backs exceptional technical founders at pre-seed and seed with capital from operators who have personally built and exited category-defining companies. Every GP has sat in the founder's seat.

RRE backs visionary early-stage founders leveraging technological breakthroughs to reshape industries. Systematic focus on Physical AI (AI that touches atoms) and Decentralized AI (bridging web3 and AI infrastructure). Boutique model enables direct partnerships with founders vs. large portfolio strategies. 30+ years of multi-cycle experience.

Balderton Capital backs European-founded technology companies with visionary founders building transformative businesses. The firm combines patient capital, operational expertise, and founder support to enable European entrepreneurs to build world-class companies.

Think independently, act with integrity, and serve founders well. Back exceptional founders building in massive markets at the earliest stages. Prioritize being indispensable over ubiquitous — long-term partnerships built on reputation and relationships.

Back B2B software founders solving real problems in sales, go-to-market, product, growth, and fundraising. We bring operational expertise from both founder and investor perspectives.

We are extremely early in translating powerful AI models into products that transform industries. Startups have the speed and unruliness to build transformative AI-native companies; big companies are too slow. There has never been a better time to start a startup.

The most ambitious B2B SaaS, AI, and Cloud Infrastructure founders at pre-seed and seed stages will build the next generation of category-defining companies. We combine technical depth, operational expertise, and capital to help founders scale across Europe and into the US market.

TheGP deploys experienced builders alongside capital to help founders achieve product-market fit faster. The firm's 25+ full-time builders—engineers, recruiters, designers, sales leaders—embed in portfolio companies for an average of nine months, earning equity grants tied to milestone delivery. This 'sweat equity' model creates deeper alignment than capital-only VC and is applied across Formation ($1-5M) and Breakout ($5-15M+) stages.

Back the next generation of crypto founders disrupting the status quo and creating entirely new markets. Invest in crypto-native builders with maniacal focus on solving real protocol, infrastructure, and application problems. Support founders with research, token model design, mechanism design guidance, and operational expertise across investing, engineering, and ecosystem development.

Build unconventional, technically sophisticated cryptocurrency projects at the intersection of cryptographic innovation, economic design, and blockchain infrastructure. We focus on highly technical primitives that require deep expertise in DeFi, L1/L2 architecture, zero-knowledge proofs, MEV economics, and on-chain governance.

The best companies will be built by technical founders - engineers, researchers, and scientists who have experienced a problem viscerally and are compelled to solve it. We invest in tools, platforms, and infrastructure for technical builders, and we partner with founders to help them evolve into leaders of generational companies.

Passion and vision matter more than pedigree. We seek founders with grit, audacity, and a spark of rebellion—regardless of background. We invest early, before success is inevitable, and support founders from 0-to-1 through Series A.

Root Ventures is composed entirely of practicing engineers and hardware hackers who explicitly underwrite 'engineering risk' in technically challenging areas like robotics, developer tools, and manufacturing tech that many generalist funds avoid. They provide capital, operational support, and serve as an 'invisible employee' to technical founding teams.

Invest in builders who are still dreaming, tinkering, and exploring what they want to create. Be the first institutional check and an active operational partner—not just a capital provider. Back founders with conviction, regardless of stage.

World-class founders at their earliest stages matter more than the stage of the business itself. We back sector-agnostic, high-ambition founders from pre-product through early revenue with candid advice, hands-on support, and a network of 1,200+ operators.

We back product-driven founders building generational companies. We led product, design, and engineering teams at the internet's most iconic companies and have built products for billions of users. Now we bring that operator expertise to support founders obsessed with product excellence and user experience.

We back bold founders at the earliest stages with capital and deep operational support. High-conviction, long-term partnerships with founders solving real problems. Founder-market fit above all else. Speed, transparency, and staying committed through difficult times.

Spark Capital backs transformative products built by creators with genuine vision and technical depth. We believe that the best way to evaluate a founding team is not through credentials or market analysis, but by experiencing their product firsthand. Product comes first, and everything else follows.

Variant invests in technology that expands autonomy through permissionless markets, software, and applications. Fund IV focuses on early-stage infrastructure and applications in crypto, with particular emphasis on AI-crypto integration, autonomous agents, and decentralized systems that give users increased access, knowledge, and ownership.

Back exceptional technical founders building crypto-native and AI-native companies as early as possible, sometimes before a product exists, via a fixed $500K SAFE and an intensive 10-week accelerator.

SevenX Ventures invests in research-driven teams building the infrastructure, finance protocols, games, and social platforms of Web3. We believe the future of blockchain is modular, intent-based, and AI-enhanced. We support founders with capital, research, and operational expertise to scale from seed to market leadership.

Human progress is defined by manipulating energy and atoms over spacetime. Software and open networks governed by tokens will transform the infrastructure economy. Crucible backs founders building digital infrastructure foundations at the intersection of energy, compute, and crypto. The firm has evolved to embrace 'Capital Markets Maximalism' — the view that financial engineering, not just software, is the key to capturing value in industrial infrastructure — and 'Industrial Resilience,' investing across five layers: dispatch & optimization, verification & ground truth, financial infrastructure, materials & supply, and defense & infrastructure security. Crucible now deploys capital across the lifecycle from venture to credit to direct infrastructure ownership.

Support early-stage founders solving real problems through technology with conviction-driven, low-volume approach. Emphasize companies addressing fundamental shifts in software economics as LLMs drive creation costs to zero. Partner deeply with founders combining institutional investing expertise with hands-on operational mentorship.

Backs determined entrepreneurs solving society's hardest problems in critical domains across the decentralized frontier, space exploration, atomic energy, and cellular/biotech sectors. Invests in companies and networks in their infancy when conviction is scarce.

Scalable, defensible innovation at the intersection of software, hardware, and intelligence. Champion founders driving the next wave of technological innovation across Cloud, Devices, Frontier, and Silicon domains. Breakthrough technologies emerge from convergence of multiple domains.

The Mountain West can produce world-class companies. We back exceptional founders solving real problems with strong product-market understanding. We provide capital, strategic network, operational support, and patient capital through multiple iterations.

Founders need more than just capital—they need belief, community, and infrastructure to build great companies. We're the first believers in bold ideas at the earliest stages, providing campus access, daily support, and a community of exceptional builders.

We invest in founders with deep technical expertise and a specific vision of the future. As former founders and company builders ourselves, we provide not just capital but steady partnership through early stages. We are contrarians who invest with conviction.

Great companies are built by exceptional founders at the earliest stages. We believe in leading rounds from day one and providing lasting partnership through good times and bad.

The user-owned internet is inevitable. We enable the founders and communities building it with capital, practical support, research, and connections. We invest in Web3-native founders who are actively using the products they're building.

Europe must own and build its own technological infrastructure. We back product-obsessed technical founders solving the hardest foundational problems in robotics, deep tech, computational infrastructure, and defense. Technological innovation is essential to European sovereignty, prosperity, and resilience.

We invest in bold technical founders building the autonomous enterprise. Before you build your team, before you write your first line of code—that's when boldstart gets to work. We collaborate with technical founders at Inception, lead pre-product rounds, and help turn bold ideas into category-creating companies.

Partners at the earliest stage with companies building foundations for modern enterprises, critical industries, and the physical world - backing category-defining, N-of-1 companies that combine defensible technology with novel go-to-market approaches.

Build, expand, and capture opportunity in open markets and permissionless technology by being deep, hands-on users of the crypto ecosystems Nascent backs, combining venture-style early investing with a liquid trading strategy.

In this time of radical change, we back the best technical founders solving system-level problems. We invest early in the people reinventing work, life, and play for the AI era.

Community-driven VC led by active operators who simultaneously build and invest. Best support for founders comes from operators understanding current market challenges firsthand, not just history. Invest in category-defining technology companies.

We are second believers in the magically weird. We back founders at concept stage who are building unconventional solutions with bold personalities that challenge the status quo. We provide capital, community, and genuine support—acting as a bubbe to our founders.

Backing seed-stage, tech- and data-driven B2B software companies across Europe with global ambition. Focus on Agility Drivers (verticalized, consumerized, XaaS solutions) and Seductive Solutions with genuine product-market fit. Invest in AI-first and AI-enabled businesses as well as frontier tech (BioIT, Space, DLT, Quantum Computing).

We back disruptive founders building category-defining companies. Our approach is founder-first, long-term, and deeply operational. We take the longest view in the room, operate with excellence and integrity, stay curious at the bleeding edge, and invest heavily in building community.

Backing technical founders pre-pitch deck. Helen invests in engineers with technical depth, high learning rates, commercial instincts, and track records of pursuing ambitious long-term bets — before consensus forms around them.

Technology will define geopolitics. We invest in the Freedom Stack—foundational technologies critical to American national security and technological leadership. We partner with mission-driven founders building capabilities essential to American prosperity and strategic advantage.

Backing builders of the future of interactive entertainment. We invest across games, content, platforms, and ecosystem technologies with conviction that visionary founders are driving transformation in how we play, watch, create, and live.

We back MIT founders building deep-tech companies with defensible science or engineering advantages. We support the transition from researcher to founder, providing both capital ($500K-$5M) and operational support through the MIT ecosystem.

NextView helps entrepreneurs build companies of consequence. We lead rounds for pre-traction companies leveraging software to solve mass-market human problems. We operate as equal partners with deep experience, acting decisively and empowering founders.

Partner with exceptional founders at the very inception of their entrepreneurial journey. Our proprietary data-driven technology identifies promising founders beyond immediate networks. We focus on teams with strong product sense and bottoms-up growth potential in data-driven software categories.

We invest in big ideas and good humans. We partner with visionary founders at the earliest stages to help them create products and protocols that people love. We combine venture capital with hands-on design expertise and creative collaboration, embedding designers and technologists directly into portfolio companies.

Investing, building and working with exceptional creators and makers. Thematic approach focused on frontier technologies including AI/ML, gaming, and decentralization.

Support founders building the next-generation infrastructure stack for the AI era. We back infra-first, engineering-led companies built for enterprises, with founder-market fit and execution speed.

Back ambitious and unique technology startups as early as possible — ideally from day one. High volume, small checks (~€200-250K), primarily European pre-seed and seed. No board seats, no round leadership. Value-add through a 900+ founder community.

A full stack investor for a complex world, backing tech disruptors with performance, values and care. Elaia partners with ambitious, technical founders from inception to leadership across two dedicated strategies: Digital Venture (B2B SaaS, AI, fintech, adtech, e-commerce) and DeepTech Seed (energy, aerospace, robotics, biotech, semiconductors), sourcing heavily from research institutions and lab spinouts.

Invest in the smartest people, regardless of what they're building, especially if the idea sounds bad in the beginning. Focus on exceptional founders in overlooked markets and non-consensus businesses. Optimize for founder quality over sector fit.

Storm Ventures backs early-stage B2B enterprise software companies with a focus on AI-native applications, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. They employ a 'paddling to surfing' growth methodology and have deep expertise in taking companies from inception to $100M+ ARR. Their philosophy: 'the interface layer will disappear. The infrastructure layer will compound.'

Back early-stage founders building the next paradigm in emerging technologies. We operate like a product studio—contributing code, designing token economics, and providing hands-on partnership rather than just capital.

Research-driven frontier technology investment firm that builds and invests in crypto, AI, robotics, and other new frontiers from the earliest stages. Paradigm remains deeply technical and research-led, collaborating on papers, code, product, and business strategy with ambitious builders.

We invest in founders leading their first institutional venture round. Our mission is to catalyze transformation in Latin America by partnering with the region's top entrepreneurs. Together, we create cycles of innovation, empowerment and change. We believe in long-term partnerships and hands-on support.

Open source is eating software faster than software is eating the world. We invest in founders commercializing open source through sustainable business models (particularly open core where core is open but enterprise features are premium). This represents capitalism best-suited for accelerating open source innovation.

Back exceptional entrepreneurs with high-conviction checks, provide rapid decision-making turnaround, and offer operational partnership. One-person decision-making enables speed and founder alignment.

Back the quirky underdog pursuing seemingly impossible ideas. Frontier tech (aerospace, biotech, climate, robotics, crypto, AI, VR/AR) will create the next generation of legendary companies. Technical founders with deep domain expertise can solve the hardest problems in physics, chemistry, and computing.

The entrepreneurial journey from zero to one is isolating and difficult. By becoming an extension of portfolio founders' teams, we can build the next generation of successful B2B SaaS companies. We invest in founders first, companies second. Technology should be human-centered, founder-first, and focused on solving real market problems.

Volt Capital is a New York based venture firm that invests in category-defining technologies underpinning the machine economy at the earliest stages. The team’s investment team are former founders and operators who take a founder-first approach to investing. Volt Capital backs pre-seed and seed companies with checks from $500k to $3m.

Back notable founders with global ambitions using technology to transform industries. We partner with exceptional teams to scale from seed through IPO, providing capital, operational expertise, and network access.

Operator-led fund investing in ambitious founders building transformative AI applications. We partner with technical founders who understand AI/ML deeply and are solving real customer problems with capital efficiency. Great product is always the best marketing.

MH Ventures backs the convergence of cryptography, composability, and community-owned networks, aiming to shape the architecture of economic sovereignty by helping decentralized systems launch, scale, and endure.

Backing highly technical founding teams building globally relevant software and deeptech products, with a focus on MENA-originated founders. Not afraid to back moonshots.

The future of work belongs to individuals and small teams with creative autonomy, distributed locations, and multiple revenue streams. We invest in tools that enable this future and back founders who embody it.

Israel's leading pre-seed platform, backing first-time Israeli founders tapping into non-traditional industries. Invests $150K for 7.5% equity per company (up to $500K in the Digital Health track), paired with a 10-week intensive bootcamp and a 300+ person mentor network.

Pre-seed fund investing in technical founders building developer-facing tools and infrastructure. Focused on curiosity, velocity of learning, and rapid building. Believe the world is shaped by unique insights at the intersection of art/culture and math/science.

Backs technical founders from day zero building genuine deep tech breakthroughs - cryptography, AI infrastructure, techbio, new space, and robotics - with a mandate of hard problems, real tech, zero hype.

Back the most brilliant founders expanding blockchain and Web3 frontiers. Hybrid venture and hedge fund model enables flexible capital deployment. Partner deeply with exceptional teams to bring transformative blockchain projects to market with exchange partnerships and market access.

New Zealand tech startups and creative companies have exceptional potential. We provide early-stage capital and operational support through our network of industry advisors to help exceptional founders achieve breakthrough results.