Best Pre-Seed Gaming + Fintech & Payments Investors 2026

Support disruptive web3 and blockchain companies with operational expertise and tokenomics guidance

Seed and early-stage technology companies with strong focus on Bitcoin ecosystem and gaming. We invest as a group of serial entrepreneurs who actively partner with world-class teams to build global category winners. Bitcoin is TCP/IP for realtime value transport on the Internet.

We invest in technology-driven transformational companies shaping the future of business, entertainment and society. We foster Sony's future businesses through strategic early-stage venture investments, seeking technologies with potential to transform industries while building synergies with Sony Group business units.

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.

Drive mass adoption of crypto and Web3 through investments in companies with strong tokenomics and utility design. Leverage ecosystem of 3,000+ LPs and 25,000+ gaming community to provide portfolio companies instant network effects and user acquisition.

Seed and early-stage technology companies with strong focus on Bitcoin ecosystem and gaming. We invest as a group of serial entrepreneurs who actively partner with world-class teams to build global category winners. Bitcoin is TCP/IP for realtime value transport on the Internet.

We back bold entrepreneurs who think big and are committed to becoming the next major tech players. We invest from pre-seed to series A with strong operational support, focusing on technology-driven solutions across AI, climate tech, fintech, SaaS, and impact-driven sectors.

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.

Research-driven crypto investment firm focused on frontier projects from earliest stages. We believe depth is prerequisite for invention, and that real progress happens at the frontier. We are builders, not just investors—collaborating on research, code, and product strategy.

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.

Breakthrough startups are designed futures, not lottery tickets. We back extraordinary founders with breakthrough insights before the world believes. We are co-conspirators, not just investors.

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.

Solana Ventures accelerates Solana blockchain growth by providing capital and infrastructure partnership to the most promising crypto ecosystem teams. We invest as both financial and operational partners, co-designing game economies, DeFi protocols, and infrastructure solutions.

Passion-driven, technical teams are uniquely positioned to capture emerging opportunities at the intersection of gaming, sports technology, and fintech. We partner with founders who combine technical depth with genuine passion for their domain and deep understanding of their user communities. User engagement is the critical lever across all three sectors—not vanity metrics like downloads, but active, monetizing users drive platform value.

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.

First-check crypto fund backing founders at inception stage — before the idea is obvious to everyone. Invests in both tokens and equity globally, with conviction that the best crypto companies are built to export value beyond the crypto echo chamber.

Web3 moves too fast for traditional VC partnerships to keep up. By leveraging a community of 400+ exceptional web3 operators (Rainmakers), we have superior access to deal flow, due diligence insights, and operational support for portfolio companies. We back technical founders with web3 experience who focus on the application layer and can disrupt $10B+ markets.

Delphi backs extraordinary founders at the bleeding edge of technology, operating at the intersection of crypto/blockchain and deep tech. Crypto is freedom technology enabling human coordination at scale without intermediaries. With AI and atomic breakthroughs, these forces will disintermediate legacy models and form foundations of civilizational change over the next decade.

The best founders want to be backed by other founders. Smaller funds run by founders perform best at pre-seed/seed stage. We operate as a decentralized fund-of-micro-funds empowering founder-GPs across global regions.

Science identifies entrenched markets and societal shifts and invests in disruptive companies with new ideas and highly focused teams. We combine venture capital with a studio model, providing operational expertise, predictive strategy, and shared services to help founders build category-defining consumer brands and technology companies.

Yellow Rocks! builds global bridges through billion-dollar talent, investing in fast-growing early-stage tech companies founded by talented entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world, aimed at global markets with potential to skyrocket in the next 5-8 years. Investing in AI since 2017.

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.

We invest in traditionally overlooked and untapped consumer technology opportunities across the future of how we care, play, and live. Demographic shifts (aging population, female wealth, cultural diversity) create massive new markets. We don't chase hype—we invest in what should exist.

GFR Fund invests in pre-seed to Series A companies building emerging digitally-native communities in gaming, entertainment, and consumer tech. They seek founders who deeply understand community-building, whether they have a product with an existing community or are in early stages of building one. Strong focus on execution, founder-market fit, and capital efficiency.

Montage Ventures aims to support radical thinkers who are bringing new ideas and platforms to foster change within the financial services, commerce and health sectors, leveraging AI as a key transformative agent.

Founders building the possibly impossible deserve capital plus marketing support. Great technology combined with exceptional storytelling and narrative development creates world-changing moonshots. We provide both the capital and the story-telling expertise to help founders achieve escape velocity.

CEE founders (Polish, Ukrainian, Romanian, etc.) are building the next generation of global software companies. We partner with experienced operators who combine deep industry expertise with serial entrepreneurship. Geographic arbitrage: exceptional technical talent in CEE with lower burn rates, global ambition. We provide early capital plus connections to Silicon Valley for follow-on funding (80% of portfolio follow-ons from SV/Europe/Asia). Goal: $500M+ exits in 8-10 years.

Close the gap between Southeast Asia and Silicon Valley by partnering with courageous founders building category-defining companies at the earliest stages. Support unsatisfied souls—artists and architects relentless in their pursuit of greatness.

Early investors and long-term partners. We back exceptional founders solving real problems across sectors. When you hit a bump in the road, we're there solving problems alongside you with operational expertise and network leverage.

Back outlier founders with unconventional ambition and deep-rooted urgency operating outside conventional wisdom. We believe the best companies are built by rare entrepreneurs who can filter out 95% of typical VC advice and construct exceptional talent and culture.

Partner with exceptional founders solving hard technical problems in fintech, AI, and science that require intense curiosity, intellectual depth, and scientific innovation. Focus on defensibility through hard technical feats, network effects, and solutions in complex, highly regulated industries.

Immigrants are strongly underrepresented in venture capital despite founding or co-founding 55% of America's billion-dollar startups. Immigration and entrepreneurship are parallel one-way journeys. We back exceptional immigrant founders because their success is not priced into the market.

Backs 'gritty founders' solving real operating problems. Focuses on 'Global Indian' founders — Indian diaspora in the US or India-based founders building for global markets — with an 'India Supply to Global Demand' thesis. Seeks non-incremental startups with strong competitive differentiation and category leadership potential.

We back European platforms of tomorrow that democratize market access and enhance efficiency through the power of network effects. Platforms create value by connecting multiple stakeholders in sustainable, long-term businesses.

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.

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.

Partner with passionate entrepreneurs building companies that change the way we live, work, play, or learn. We're operator-first investors who provide capital, strategic guidance, and operational mentorship alongside network and investor connections.

Early-stage, operator-led firm investing in next-generation consumer platforms, products, and services. We combine fintech, entertainment, and Wall Street expertise to provide hands-on operational support beyond capital.

Partnering with brilliant founders to upend the status quo by investing in AI-driven software, sustainability technologies, and innovative consumer brands. We believe AI will dominate software over the next decade, and we seek to support founders reimagining industries across all three sectors.

Founders investing in founders. Boston Seed invests at pre-seed and seed stages in audacious founders building meaningful technology across consumer, B2B SaaS, gaming, sports, AI, and cloud infrastructure. Known for early conviction in unproven categories (e.g., daily fantasy sports via DraftKings in 2012). Emphasizes transparent, humble storytelling about venture realities. All GPs are ex-founders/CEOs with exits, bringing authentic founder empathy.

Back founder-operators with deep industry experience and prior successful exits. Invest from position of operational insight rather than pure financial engineering. Focus on companies showing early traction and founder-market fit across consumer, fintech, enterprise software, and automation.

Where capital becomes culture. Dreamers VC bridges established Japanese corporate investors with early-stage US companies by combining entertainment, sports, and technology expertise. The fund leverages celebrity networks, entertainment channels, and Japanese corporate partnerships to amplify storytelling and enable cross-cultural market expansion.

We champion the leaders of the new internet through decentralized technology. We invest across the full lifecycle of blockchain networks from pre-launch through post-token network effects, combining equity and liquid token positions while providing operational and technical expertise.

We back outliers of the outliers - founders with unreasonable ambition who can filter out 95% of conventional VC advice. We seek category-defining companies aiming for $10B+ outcomes, not incremental improvements. Our conviction is deep, selective, and global. We don't meddle - we provide brutal honesty, talent upgrades, and capital for survival through near-death moments.

Identify resilient, obsessed founders with exceptional conviction and a chip on their shoulder building category-defining products with defensible distribution. Target founders to work with for the next decade, seeking businesses with clear revenue prospects in large markets.

Applications are interfaces. Protocols are the product. MFV backs operator-first founders building programmable financial infrastructure, AI-crypto convergence products, and token-native consumer applications across the US and Asia.

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.

The hardest thing in seed is finding product-market fit. We help you find it. If you already have product-market fit, we will help you scale. We partner with exceptionally ambitious founders for the long run and provide capital combined with operational expertise through our 100+ member Product Council.

We back the relentless - founders with exceptional drive, clear vision, and proven execution ability building ambitious category-defining companies.

Incubate Fund provides unwavering hands-on support to visionary entrepreneurs from the earliest stages. As Japan's leading seed-stage VC, they go beyond capital to provide operational support, founder counseling, talent recruitment, and business introductions. Core question: 'Does this action lead to impact?'

Invest in technical storytellers—founders with deep technical depth, exceptional communication skills, and strong execution velocity. Fund innovation in traditionally overlooked industries (Clipboard Companies) by applying modern technology while respecting domain expertise.

Early-stage consumer technology — mobile, social, marketplaces, media, consumer health, and consumer fintech. Built by King.com founders to back ambitious consumer-native teams with engagement DNA.

We invest in the earliest pre-seed startups led by founders outside typical networks, selling into large and growing markets, with unique approaches or insights. We focus on under-networked, execution-focused founders—introverted technologists, industry veterans, and heads-down operators—who create outsized value through systematic sourcing and deep technical partnership.

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.

We invest in world-class founders solving significant problems. We prioritize founder quality, founder-problem fit, and values-aligned partnerships. We help exceptional founders become category leaders early, before they become obvious trends.

The best investment opportunities emerge at the intersection of innovation and scale. We invest across the full lifecycle from seed to public markets, focusing on technology companies that will transform sectors globally with particular conviction in AI-enabled platforms and infrastructure.

HOF Capital invests in relentlessly ambitious founders building world-changing technologies that accelerate abundance: sustained technological progress that expands access to opportunity, health, and economic prosperity. Its current public thesis emphasizes AI and agentic systems as amplifiers of discovery, engineering, and knowledge creation, alongside frontier infrastructure and applications that can shorten scientific and technological invention timelines.

Early-stage venture capital for IT and Biotech companies in Colorado Front Range and Mid-Atlantic. Focus on experienced founding teams solving important problems with potential for significant financial returns. Patient capital approach with operational support and deep regional networks.

Sand Hill Angels backs seed-stage, high-tech companies with large and growing markets, well-defined problems, disruptive solutions, defensible technology, and strong teams with demonstrated ability to execute. The group leverages 145+ experienced angels to provide capital, mentorship, and network access across the Silicon Valley ecosystem.

We build category-defining companies through a combination of design, product, operations, and capital. We identify market gaps, pair brilliant founders with Expa's studio resources, and help them build companies that reshape entire industries.

We invest at the earliest stages and partner with exceptional entrepreneurs from idea to IPO. We stay small by design to remain aligned with founders. We're sector-agnostic, conviction-driven, capital-efficient, and believe in founder/market fit and intrinsic value over hype.

Consumer technology has the power to measurably improve billions of lives across the globe. We invest in exceptional entrepreneurs building digital utilities that provide better access to housing, healthcare, food, financial services, transportation, education, and entertainment globally.

Back resilient founders building category-defining companies. Leverage Korea's cultural wave for global expansion. When others say 'no', we find the 'yes'.

We invest in people, not business scripts. We believe exceptional founders can come from anywhere. Our open video-pitch funnel replaces traditional warm intros with meritocratic founder access. We want to see and hear you—your passion, vision, and commitment matter more than a polished deck.

Technical founders backing technical founders. We invest early in technical teams transforming major industries facing existential threats and tremendous opportunities. We target essential sectors—healthcare, logistics, real estate, manufacturing—where technical innovation solves critical problems.

Product-obsessed investing in consumer tech, prosumer software, and SMB applications. We back founders based on product quality and user value, not credentials or background.

Entrepreneur-centric private investment firm backing Israeli-related seed to early-stage ventures across diverse technology areas. Patient partners who allow founders to build global tech companies at their own pace.

Equity of access and representation in venture capital delivers positive returns. Diverse and underrepresented (including LGBTQ+) leaders of high-growth companies deserve capital access. When these founders succeed, they influence ecosystems and open doors for historically excluded groups.

Culture-Tech companies that disrupt and define how we live, work, play, and interact with the world every day. We invest in passionate founders building transformative products that change cultural behaviors.

The best founders are artists — obsessive, compelled by novel ideas, and often initially misunderstood. Asylum backs these creative builders with capital and hands-on support when asked, without taking board seats or administrative control. Fund I is $55M deploying $1–2M checks at pre-seed and seed.

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.