Cold Start Ventures
Venture capitalNew York · Pre-Seed–Growth · 1 people tracked
Find your way into Cold Start Ventures
7 people in our graph share verified history with the Cold Start Ventures team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.
Investment thesis
Cold Start Ventures operates as an incubation and venture partner that acts as co-founders rather than passive investors. The firm develops companies from its own theses, targeting overlooked opportunities before the broader market recognizes them, then pairs those ideas with exceptional founders. It provides hands-on support across strategy and fundraising, helping portfolio founders raise from top-tier VCs and scale rapidly. The firm emphasizes conviction-led investing, deep operational involvement, and compounding success across its portfolio, with a focus on backing founders who think differently and attack generational opportunities.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 7, 2026.
Team · 1 people
from the firm's website.png)
What they invest in
from 13 of 16 portfolio companiesAI & Machine Learning ×6Developer Tools ×4Enterprise Software ×4Healthtech ×4SaaS ×4Deep Tech ×3Digital Health ×3Fintech ×3
HQs:United States×8Australia×1
Who they back
founder profiles across 14 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×52 founders×33 founders×14+ founders×5
Where their founders studiedfrom 29 founders with education data
Duke University ×4Stanford University ×4Harvard University ×2Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi ×2The Wharton School ×2Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology ×2University of Toronto ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 29 founders with career history
OpenAI ×9DeepMind ×4Stanford University ×3Zapier ×3Facebook ×2Stripe ×2World Economic Forum ×2
7 founders hold a PhD · 3 hold an MBA (of 30 with degree data)
Investments · 16 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBy year:2025 · 12023 · 12021 · 13 dated
Revolutionizing space technology to make life multi-planetary
Hawthorne, US
Elon Musk(Founder, CEO & Chief Engineer)in
Co-investors1/1 Capital137 Ventures4DX VenturesA*Abstract VenturesAccess Technology Ventures+110 more
3Y Health provides business setup and compliance infrastructure for healthcare practitioners, handling licensing, registration, and regulatory requirements so practitioners can launch their practice with minimal administrative burden.
Digital HealthFintechHealthtechSaaS
Co-investorsSound Ventures
Anthropic is an AI safety research company that builds reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Dario Amodei(Co-founder & CEO)inDaniela Amodei(Co-founder & President)inTom Brown(Co-founder)inJack Clark(Co-founder & Head of Policy)inJared Kaplan(Co-founder & Chief Science Officer)inChris Olah(Co-founder & Interpretability Research Lead)in
Co-investors3Comma Capital7BC Venture CapitalA.Capital VenturesAccelAlkeon InnovationAllen Institute for AI (AI2) Incubator+85 more
Assort provides voice AI agents for healthcare that use deep patient interaction data to proactively guide patients through their care journey, orchestrating tasks from intake and scheduling to billing and care gap closure.
AI & Machine LearningDigital HealthHealthtech
Jeffery Liu(Cofounder)inJon Wang(Cofounder)in
Co-investorsCoho DeeptechCollective LiquidityFelicis VenturesFirst Round CapitalFour Acres CapitalLightspeed Venture Partners+3 more
Berry Street provides credentialing, billing, administrative, and referral support to independent dietitians, enabling them to accept insurance and serve patients seeking nutrition therapy.
Digital HealthHealthtechBrooklyn, US
Noah Kotlove(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)inYury Yakubchyk(Director)in
BoardJesse Rose(Director)Wendy Xiao(Director)in
Co-investorsMarketplaceNorthzoneVillage GlobalFJ Labs
Blank Street operates specialty coffee shops with a small-footprint model, serving high-quality specialty coffee and locally-sourced food at affordable prices.
ConsumerFoodTechRetail TechBrooklyn, US
Issam Freiha(Executive Officer, Director)inBerk Emir Ildiz(Executive Officer)Ignacio Llado Alvarez-Salas(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardJason Fiedler(Director)inHisham Elhaddad(Director)inJoel Cutler(Director)in
Co-investorsGeneral CatalystGood FriendsHOF CapitalLeft Lane CapitalOutbound VenturesReshape+3 more
Careerist helps job seekers discover tech careers that match their personality and interests through a personality quiz matching system.
EdTechFintechFuture of WorkSan Francisco, US
Ivan Tsybaev(Founder)inMax Glubochansky(Co-Founder & CBO)inMax Gusakov(Founder)in
Co-investorsSmart Partnership CapitalY CombinatorCathexis VenturesGrant Park VenturesXploration Capital
FINOM provides business accounts for companies, offering banking services such as SEPA transfers, deposits, and ATM withdrawals via a physical card across Europe.
Fintech
Andrew Petrov(Founder)in
Co-investorsAZURO CAPITAL VENTURESBegin CapitalCogito Capital PartnersEntrée CapitalHeadlineHeadline Growth Management, LLC+6 more
Glean provides an AI-powered workplace search and knowledge management platform that connects company data across documents, messages, tickets, and systems to help teams access information and complete work.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSilicon Valley, US
Arvind Jain(Founder & CEO)inVishwanath T R(Co-founder and CTO)inTony Gentilcore(Co-founder, Engineering)inT.R. Vishwanath(Co-Founder and Technical Infrastructure Lead)inPiyush Prahladka(Co-Founder Emeritus)in
Co-investorsAdvaita CapitalCategory VenturesCoatue ManagementCraft VenturesDash VCFoundation Capital+14 more
Grow Therapy provides online mental health therapy services designed to be more accessible, affordable, and user-friendly than traditional therapy.
B2B MarketplacesHealthtechMental HealthSaaS
Jake Cooper(Founder & CEO)inManoj Kanagaraj(Cofounder)inManoj Kanagaraj, MD(Founder)inAlan Ni(Founder)in
Co-investorsBCIEvio VCMenlo VenturesPLUS CapitalReshapeSequoia Capital+6 more
AI company developing a medical search engine used by physicians for clinical decision support.
Daniel Nadler(Founder & CEO)inZachary Ziegler(Founder)
Co-investorsAlkeon InnovationAmity VenturesAndreessen HorowitzBreyer CapitalCatalio Capital Management, LPCoatue Management+15 more
Phia is an AI shopping assistant that compares prices across the web and secondhand marketplaces so shoppers can build their closet at the best price.
Sophia Kianni(Co-founder)inPhoebe Gates(Co-founder)in
Co-investorsDuke Capital PartnersNotable CapitalScribble VenturesKhosla VenturesKleiner Perkins
PsiQuantum builds fault-tolerant quantum computers using photonic qubits and semiconductor manufacturing processes.
Deep TechHardwareQuantum ComputingSemiconductorsMoreton Bay, AU
Prof. Terry Rudolph(Co-founder & Chief Architect)Dr. Pete Shadbolt(Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer)inProf. Mark Thompson(Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer)Jeremy O'Brien(Founder)inVictor Peng(Chief Executive Officer)in
BoardSiraj Khaliq(Director)
Co-investorsBlackbird VenturesC4 VenturesFounders FundFPVHARPER COURT VENTURESIntegra Groupe+23 more
Runlayer builds a trust and safety layer that enables enterprises to deploy AI agents and integrations across their organizations securely.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaS
Andy Berman(Co-founder)inTal Peretz(Co-founder)inVitor Balocco(Co-founder)in
Co-investorsFelicis VenturesKhosla Ventures
Vercel is an infrastructure platform for building and deploying applications, with emerging support for agentic capabilities that allow AI agents and humans to collaborate in software development.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Guillermo Rauch(Founder & CEO)in
BoardGeoff Lewis(Director)inDaniel Levine(Director)inReid Christian(Director)in
Co-investors8VCAccelBedrockBeyond CapitalCoatue ManagementCRV (Charles River Ventures)+25 more
x.ai builds frontier AI reasoning models, real-time voice AI, and generative media systems.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwarePalo Alto, US
Yuhuai (Tony) Wu(Founder)inGreg Yang(Founder)inGuodong Zhang(Founder)inIgor Babuschkin(Founder)inElon Musk(Founder)
Co-investors7percent VenturesAbstract VenturesAglae VenturesAmity VenturesAndreessen HorowitzArctic Digital+35 more
Exits · 2
IPOs and acquisitions across the tracked portfolioPortfolio news
latest coverage across their companiesspace-x · businessinsider.com · Aug 16, 2026
Phia · centraljersey.com · Aug 15, 2026
Anthropic · Reuters · Aug 15, 2026
xAI · readsludge.com · Jul 17, 2026
Runlayer · financialit.net · Jul 17, 2026
Vercel's · weetracker.com · Jul 17, 2026
Glean · business-standard.com · Jul 17, 2026
Assort Health · healthcareittoday.com · Jul 6, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has Cold Start Ventures made?
- Cold Start Ventures has 15 tracked investments, 2 of which have exited via acquisition or IPO, including 1 dated in the last 24 months.
- What stage does Cold Start Ventures invest at?
- Cold Start Ventures invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth stages.
- What sectors does Cold Start Ventures focus on?
- Cold Start Ventures focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Consumer, Fintech, Healthtech, LegalTech, Marketplaces, Quantum Computing, Robotics, SaaS, Space Tech.
- Where is Cold Start Ventures located?
- Cold Start Ventures is headquartered in New York, US.
- Does Cold Start Ventures lead rounds?
- Cold Start Ventures typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.
- Who does Cold Start Ventures co-invest with?
- Cold Start Ventures most often shares deals with Coatue Management, Menlo Ventures, Sequoia Capital, among 128 tracked co-investors.
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