Essence Venture Capital
Venture capitalSeattle · Pre-Seed–Seed · 1 people tracked
Also known as TIMOTHY CHEN ADVISORS, LLC
Investment thesis
An engineer-first solo GP Timothy Chen investing in infra startups at repo/demo or GitHub-alpha stage, uniquely comfortable backing founders before products exist and highly technically driven.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 25, 2026.
Team · 1 people
from public directories
What they invest in
from 94 of 110 portfolio companiesAI & Machine Learning ×67Developer Tools ×59Data & Infrastructure ×35Enterprise Software ×34SaaS ×29Cloud Computing ×16Cybersecurity ×14Creator Economy ×6
HQs:United States×53Canada×1United Kingdom×1Ireland×1Sweden×1
Investments · 110 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBy year:2026 · 12024 · 12023 · 42022 · 22021 · 311 dated
DeepSource provides developer tools for code quality and security.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSan Francisco, US
Sanket Saurav(Co-founder & CEO)inJai Pradeesh(Co-founder, President)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFundersClubHack VC645 VenturesY Combinator
Adelphi provides a federated data connectivity platform that gives intelligence analysts secure, permission-aware access to data scattered across disparate systems, agencies, and partners without moving or duplicating it.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDefense Tech
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFlex Capital Partners
Alkymi provides an AI-powered platform that extracts and automates data from unstructured documents, turning it into workflow-ready data via APIs.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareFintechNew York City, US
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsWork-BenchIntel CapitalCanaan Partners
Apollo provides an AI-powered platform designed for go-to-market teams to improve sales and marketing productivity.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareMarketing TechSales TechSan Francisco, US
Tim Zheng(Founder/CEO)inRay Li(Founder)inMatt Curl(Chief Executive Officer)Marcio Arnecke(Chief Marketing Officer)Adam Carr(Chief Revenue Officer)Phil Moon(Chief Financial Officer)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsA*Angel Collective Opportunity FundBain Capital VenturesNewView CapitalPathlight VenturesStruck Capital+8 more
Arcol is a building design authoring platform that integrates construction and preconstruction intelligence into the design process, supporting collaboration between teams and AI agents.
Construction TechPropTechSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsCraft VenturesCowboy Ventures
Artillery is a performance testing toolkit that provides load testing, Playwright-based end-to-end testing, and production monitoring capabilities for web applications and APIs.
Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSLimerick, IE
Hassy Veldstra(Founder)inHasan Minatullaevich Veldstra(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardEliot Durbin(Director)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsY Combinatorboldstart venturesFirst Round CapitalGeneral CatalystLowercase Capital
Atmanity is a platform for creating and discovering AI-generated avatars, offering a library of thousands of avatars that users can browse and make their own.
AI & Machine LearningConsumerCreator Economy
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAddin VentureGFR Fund
Axolotl is an open-source tool for fine-tuning and customizing large language models across different AI architectures, supporting techniques like LoRA, qLoRA, and PEFT with faster training.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAfore CapitalFikaLeadout CapitalChapter One
Chroma provides open-source, serverless search infrastructure for AI applications, supporting vector, full-text, regex, sparse, and metadata search built on object storage.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAir Street CapitalAIX VenturesAngel Collective Opportunity FundBloomberg BetaQuiet Capital
Clarify builds a modern CRM platform that consolidates customer data from multiple sources, automates workflows, and provides insights to drive business growth.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSales TechDover, US
Patrick Thompson(Co-Founder / CEO)inOndrej Hrebicek(Co-Founder / CTO)inAustin Hay(Executive Officer, Director)Pranav Priyush(CEO)
BoardMatt Garratt(Director)Zachary Bratun-Glennon(Director)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFikaGradient VenturesInvariantes FundMadrona Venture GroupUS Venture PartnersInsight Partners
Cleanlab develops machine learning tools for data quality and model improvement, serving enterprises and ML practitioners across industries.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaS
Curtis Northcutt(Founder)inJonas Mueller(Co-founder)inAnish AthalyeinAnishathalye(Co-founder)Ulyana Tkachenko(Co-founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsMenlo VenturesPreston-Werner VenturesSamsung NextTq Ventures LlcAME Cloud VenturesBain Capital Ventures+1 more
Cline is an open source AI coding agent runtime that developers use inside their IDE, terminal, or embedded via an SDK to plan and execute coordinated multi-file code changes, run terminal commands, and automate workflows in CI pipelines.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors1984 Ventures Management, Llc
Coana provides software composition analysis (SCA) with reachability analysis that identifies which open-source vulnerabilities in direct and indirect dependencies are actually reachable, filtering out unexploitable ones so developers focus remediation on relevant issues.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Coiled is a lightweight compute platform that enables data engineers and scientists to scale Python code to thousands of cloud machines without Kubernetes or Docker.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Matthew Rocklin(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsBessemer Venture PartnersCostanoa VenturesIA Ventures
Comfy is an open-source tool for building repeatable visual AI workflows by chaining multiple AI models together.
AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Yoland Y.(Founder)inYaozhong Yan(Executive Officer, Director)Junhan Huang(Director)
BoardChristopher Paik(Director)Yannik Marek(Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAbstract VenturesCraft VenturesFoundersTranspose Platform ManagementChemistryCursor Capital+2 more
Comm is an encrypted messaging platform for communities that combines Signal's end-to-end encryption model with personal servers to support community features like channels, roles, and threads.
Crypto & Web3SocialNew York City, US
AshoatAshoat Tevosyan(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsVibe CapitalElectric CapitalEniac Ventures
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Crash Override monitors code written by humans and AI agents, inspects each build layer, applies cryptographic tagging to artifacts, and tracks their provenance in production environments.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareNew York, US
Mark Curphey(Director)John Viega(Executive Officer, Director)in
BoardJay Allan Leek II(Director)Erik Nordlander(Director)inMichael Droesch(Director)inGerhard Eschelbeck(Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsBessemer Venture PartnersFirestreak VenturesSyn Ventures Seed Management LlcGV (Google Ventures)SYN Ventures
Datafold builds AI-powered agents and tools that automate complex data engineering tasks including migrations, optimization, CI/CD, and data quality validation.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSNew York City, US
Gleb Mezhanskiy(Founder)inAlex Morozov(Founder)in
BoardAaron Jacobson(Director)inPeter Sonsini(Director)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAmplify PartnersAngel Collective Opportunity FundAvant LabsGood News VenturesNew Enterprise Associates (NEA)Y Combinator+1 more
DeepSource is an AI-powered code review platform that combines static analysis with AI agents to flag security vulnerabilities, bugs, and quality issues on pull requests and across full codebases.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
An AI security and trust platform securing live voice and video calls with real-time context analysis, deepfake detection, and social engineering response automation.
San Francisco, US
Aman Ibrahim(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsResponsibly VenturesRipple VenturesYAR Ventures
DevZero profiles, schedules, and rightsizes Kubernetes workloads without restarts to cut cloud compute costs, and offers a beta tool to measure and reroute LLM provider traffic for cost, latency, and reliability optimization.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Enterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSSan Francisco, US
Adam Hiatt(Executive Officer, Director)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsPoint72 Ventures
Dragonfly is a Redis-compatible, multi-threaded (thread-per-core) in-memory data store that delivers higher throughput and better memory efficiency on a smaller hardware footprint.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Oded Poncz(Founder)Roman Gershman(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
effx built a platform to help engineering teams collaborate and work more productively, with a focus on microservices architectures.
Developer ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsCowboy VenturesESSENCE VCKleiner PerkinsTokyo BlackModern Technical
Encore is a backend development platform that lets developers declare cloud infrastructure directly in application code, run a local environment mirroring the cloud, and automatically provision production infrastructure in their own AWS or GCP accounts.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSaaSStockholm, SE
Marcus Kohlberg(Founder)inAndré Eriksson(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAlliance VCESSENCE VCKleiner PerkinsAlliance VentureCrane Venture PartnersDig Ventures Management Limited
Eventual builds data infrastructure for teams training Physical AI models on video and high-frequency sensor data such as lidar and fleet logs.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsLaude Ventures
Everest is an AI platform that automates regulatory, clinical, and commercial document workflows for pharmaceutical, medtech, and contract research organizations (CROs), generating submission-ready documents and associated statistical analyses from source data.
AI & Machine LearningBiotechEnterprise SoftwareMedical Devices
Mark G. Grondin(CEO)Ashley Ferreira(CEO)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsTq Ventures LlcQuiet Capital
Fearn is a patent prosecution firm that handles patent drafting and filing for technology teams, founded by former Big Law patent professionals and PhDs.
AI & Machine LearningLegalTech
Han Kim(Co-founder & CEO)
Co-investorsDesigner FundKindred VenturesA16Z SpeedrunESSENCE VC
Fiddler AI provides an AI observability and control platform offering experiments, monitoring, guardrails, and governance for enterprise AI agents and compound AI systems.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwarePalo Alto, US
Krishna Gade(Founder & CEO)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundaVentureBenhamou Global VenturesCisco InvestmentsDentsu VenturesE12 Venture Capital, Llc+20 more
Flarion offers a native execution engine, built in Rust on Apache Arrow and DataFusion, that runs as an in-process plugin to accelerate Spark, Ray Data, and Trino workloads through vectorized execution.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Udi Tizan(Founder)inRan Reichman(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsHetz VenturesSierra Ventures
Flatfile provides an AI-powered platform for data migration, letting teams collect, map, clean, transform, and validate file-based data through a spreadsheet-like interface with automated extraction, validation rules, and AI transformations.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Flowglad is a platform that unifies cross-system automations, context, and knowledge for professional service teams.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareSaaSNew York City, US
Agree Ahmed(Co-Founder)inHarrison Telyan(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFinancial Venture StudioRestive VenturesSouth QuadY Combinator
Flox provides reproducible development environments built on Nix, letting developers bundle the tools and frameworks they need across the software lifecycle.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsEnterprise Software
Ron Efroni(CEO)inMichael Brantley(CTO)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsHetz VenturesNew Enterprise Associates (NEA)Angel Collective Opportunity FundFirestreak Ventures
Flux develops a browser-based tool for hardware design collaboration that enables teams to work together efficiently.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsHardwareSan Francisco, US
Matthias Wagner(Founder)inLance Cassidy(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors8VCBehind Genius VenturesOutsidersPreston-Werner Ventures
Gable uses static analysis of source code to trace field-level data lineage, mapping how sensitive data flows from consumer-facing apps through backend systems to storage without runtime agents or sampling.
CybersecurityData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Daniel Dicker(Founder)Chad Sanderson(Founder)inJames Frost(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundB Capital GroupB4 CapitalCrane Venture PartnersRoosh Venturesx15ventures (Commonwealth Bank)+1 more
Genmo is a research lab building frontier AI models for video generation, positioning its models as world simulators for embodied AI and synthetic environments.
AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyDeep TechMedia & EntertainmentSan Francisco, US
Ajay Jain(Founder)Paras Jain(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundEastlink Capital PartnersNew Enterprise Associates (NEA)
Iris is a natural-language-to-SQL analytics tool that lets executives and business teams ask questions in plain language and get data answers in under a minute.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Kite provides an agent interface and a purpose-built, EVM-compatible blockchain that lets AI agents run workflows and transact autonomously, with native stablecoin settlement and deterministic finality.
AI & Machine LearningCrypto & Web3Developer ToolsSan Francisco, US
Scott Shi(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsCoinbase VenturesRR2 CapitalSamsung Next
Good Start Labs builds game-based learning environments, benchmarks, and data-generation pipelines that produce verifiable rewards and real human feedback to train and evaluate AI models.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeep TechGaming
Alex Duffy(Founder)inTyler(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsInovia CapitalTIRTA Ventures
.png){kind=icon}
Groundlight builds machine learning and computer vision technology to enable robotics applications.
Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsRoboticsSeattle, US
AviLeo Dirac(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsMadrona Venture Group
Herald provides an AI-powered platform and API for insurance brokerages, including an intelligence engine, an email-based AI agent that extracts client data and sends submissions, and connectivity to carriers, MGUs, MGAs, wholesale brokerages, and program managers.
AI & Machine LearningInsurTechSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAfore CapitalBrewer Lane VenturesUnderscore VC
A full-stack monitoring platform that helps developers identify performance issues and bugs in web applications through session replay and error tracking.
Developer ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSeattle, US
Jay Khatri(Cofounder, CEO (acquired by LaunchDarkly))inVadim Korolik(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAfore CapitalCraft VenturesFuel CapitalNeoRamtin NaimiWorklife Ventures+5 more
HumanSignal provides data labeling, model evaluation, and quality workflow tools for AI teams, including managed annotation data services and Label Studio Enterprise for customizable labeling interfaces with cloud or on-prem deployment.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Michael Malyuk(Founder)inNikolai Liubimov(Founder)inMax TkachenkoNick Skriabin
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors500 GlobalBow CapitalSwift VenturesUnusual Ventures
Stream processing cloud that lets developers turn data into real-time action at scale.
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsCusp Capital
Inference² provides automation and monitoring tools for running AI inference workloads in a company's own cloud.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFoothill VenturesScribble Ventures
Modal provides a serverless cloud platform designed for data, AI, and machine learning applications, enabling developers to scale from zero to thousands of CPUs or GPUs with simple code.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsNew York, US
Erik BernhardssonAkshat Bubna(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAmplify PartnersLux CapitalRedpoint VenturesCreandumGeneral CatalystAbstraction Capital+8 more
Jasper provides an AI-powered platform for marketers and creators to generate and refine content.
AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyEnterprise SoftwareMarketing TechSaaSAustin, US
Chris Hull(Founder/Vice President of Customer Success)inJP Morgan(Founder/CTO)inDave Rogenmoser(Founder)inJohn Philip Morgan(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Shane Orlick(Executive Officer)Timothy Youngin
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAAF Management Ltd.Angel Collective Opportunity FundBessemer Venture PartnersCoatue ManagementHubSpot VenturesIVP (Institutional Venture Partners)+6 more
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Keycard provides access control and identity management for AI agents, resolving a composite identity (user, device, agent, task) and issuing short-lived, least-privilege credentials scoped to each task when an agent requests access to tools, APIs, and data.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsModern TechnicalTapestry VCVermilion Cliffs VenturesAcrew CapitalAndreessen Horowitzboldstart ventures
LanceDB is an AI-native multimodal lakehouse platform that unifies training data across multiple systems to accelerate model development and dataset creation at scale.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Chang She(Founder)inLei Xu(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundCRV (Charles River Ventures)Swift VenturesThe E14 FundTheory VenturesWayfinder Ventures+5 more
LaunchNotes is a platform that connects product feedback, roadmap, and release communication so stakeholders know what is shipping and why it matters.
Developer ToolsMarketing TechSaaSCalifornia, US
Tyler Davis(Co-founder & CEO)inJake Brereton(Co-founder & COO)inEvan Michner(Director of Product)inAdam Wardlow(Director of Product Marketing)inJack Sneeringer(Director of Sales)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAtlassian VenturesBull City Venture PartnersCowboy VenturesInsight Partners
Legion Intelligence builds AI agents that perform work—search, chat-based answers, content drafting, and multi-step workflow automation—across an organization's existing systems and documents, with source attribution, human-in-the-loop approval, and access governance.
AI & Machine LearningDefense TechEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Jason Schnitzer(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsNava VenturesXYZ Venture Capital
Letta is an AI research lab building self-improving digital agents that use memory-native reinforcement learning and programmatic context management to learn continuously from experience over time.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Sarah Wooders(Cofounder)Charles Packer(Founder)inSarah Wooders, PhD(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFelicis Ventures
Levo is a runtime application security platform that discovers, tests, and monitors APIs, AI agents, LLMs, MCP servers, and vector stores using eBPF-powered runtime visibility.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Disarray builds AI research agents designed for long-horizon autonomy over heterogeneous data, using a context graph that captures lineage across data, code, execution history, and documentation to form hypotheses, run experiments, and interpret results.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors.406 VenturesLaude Ventures
Liveblocks provides realtime infrastructure for building multiplayer and collaborative applications, handling concurrent edits on shared data so that both people and AI agents can work in sync.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Maestro is an open-source mobile UI testing tool that runs human-readable YAML end-to-end tests on iOS simulators and Android emulators, with a CLI, visual test IDE (Studio), cloud runner, and an MCP server for AI agents.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Jacob Krupski(Founder)Leland Takamine(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsModern TechnicalAcronym Venture CapitalDraper AssociatesDraper DragonNetEaseNew Stack Ventures+3 more
Mage is a data workflow platform where users describe an outcome and the system builds and runs AI-generated workflows that connect sources, apply checks, and deliver validated data to dashboards, products, APIs, and agents.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSanta Clara, US
Georges Mangin(Founder)Tommy Dang(Founder)Xiaoyou Wang(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsDesigner FundGradient VenturesLigature VCSINEWAVE VENTURESAnorak Ventures
Magic Patterns generates user interface designs that match existing product styling and enables rapid prototyping of new features.
Developer ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSan Francisco, US
Alex Danilowicz(Founder)inTeddy Ni(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsStandard CapitalY CombinatorESSENCE VCTwenty Two Ventures
Mesh provides a real-time B2B verification API that helps companies verify and onboard legitimate U.S. businesses, including SMBs and licensed professionals, by checking business registration, professional licenses, and business risk signals.
Enterprise SoftwareFintechSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAfore CapitalAscend Venture CapitalCoinbase VenturesLiberty City VenturesModerne VenturesParadigm+1 more
Mixpeek is a multimodal search and retrieval platform that indexes video, image, audio, and document files on a company's existing object storage, extracting features like scenes, faces, OCR, transcripts, and embeddings to return timestamped search results.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Moment is a document and internal-tooling tool with a built-in reactive programming environment using React and Tailwind CSS, storing documents as plain Markdown files on disk in git/Jujutsu repositories.
Developer ToolsFuture of WorkSaaSSeattle, US
Lita Cho(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Monograph is a firm management platform for US-based architecture and engineering firms (roughly 5 to 50 people), combining pipeline and proposal management, project budgeting and time tracking, project accounting, invoicing, and payments in one system.
Construction TechEnterprise SoftwareSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsDesigner FundHomebrewParade Ventures
MotherDuck provides a serverless cloud analytics database built on DuckDB, enabling users to query and understand their data more easily.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureSeattle, US
Jordan Tigani(Co-founder and Chief Duck-Herder)inHannes Mühleisen(Co-founder)Mark Raasveldt(Co-founder)Tino TereshkoRyan Boyd(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAmplify PartnersAndreessen HorowitzEastlink Capital PartnersFelicis VenturesFirestreak VenturesKearny Jackson+7 more
Nectry provides a governance and control plane for enterprise AI agents, chatbots, and apps, letting companies build specialized, policy-scoped agents and bring existing AI (in Copilot, Salesforce, or low-code tools) under audit-ready control.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityEnterprise Software
Daniel Winograd-Cort(Founder)inAdam Chlipala(Chief Scientist)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFoothill VenturesSamsung NextThe E14 Fund
Nilo is a browser-based 3D creative suite that lets users generate, customize, rig, animate, and export 3D assets and skins for Roblox from sketches, images, or text prompts, without using tools like Blender.
AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyGamingSan Francisco, US
Nuno Leiria(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Nuon is a platform that lets software developers run their applications natively inside their customers' cloud accounts, supporting the BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) deployment model for B2B applications.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareBeverly Hills, US
Jon Morehouse(CEO, Founder)James Wu(Director)
BoardAndrew McLoughlin(Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsDeep AcreHawk Hill VenturesMantis CapitalRed Swan VenturesAlumni VenturesESSENCE VC+2 more
Ollama provides a platform for building with and running open-source language models locally and in the cloud.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwarePalo Alto, US
Jeffrey Morgan(Founder)inMichael Chiang(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundPace CapitalTheory VenturesY Combinator8VCBenchmark+1 more
OpenInfer builds inference infrastructure and tools that enable AI models to run efficiently on resource-constrained platforms and edge devices.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSan Mateo, US
Behnam Bastani(Co-Founder & CEO)Reza Nourai(Co-Founder & CTO)Kam Eshghi(Chief Business Officer)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsCota CapitalMFV PartnersOperator StackTau Ventures
Orb provides billing and revenue infrastructure for software companies, enabling usage-based and hybrid pricing models.
Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSSan Francisco, US
Alvaro Morales(Co-Founder & CEO)inKshitij Grover(Co-Founder & CTO)inJosh Buckler(Head of Sales)Bas de Goei(Head of Marketing)Justin Chuan(Head of Design)
BoardSaam Motamedi(Board Member / Investor Representative (Partner, Greylock))in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundData Community FundESSENCE VCFOG VenturesGreylock PartnersMayfield Fund+6 more
Phonic builds a speech-to-speech voice agent platform using its own audio models for natural conversation and tool calling.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechEnterprise Software
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
San Francisco-based Poggio Labs builds AI "revenue agents" that generate continuously updated account plans inside Salesforce.
San Francisco, US
Connor Doyle(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Matthew Slotnick(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAccelSpark Capital
ProjectDiscovery offers Neo, an autonomous AI-powered security testing platform that continuously scans web applications, APIs, and cloud infrastructure to identify and verify vulnerabilities with high accuracy and minimal false positives.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Rishiraj Sharma(Founder)inSandeep Singh(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundCRV (Charles River Ventures)Mango CapitalPoint72 VenturesRain CapitalSignalFire
Hoboken, US
Andrew Stein(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Noah Carr(Director)
BoardEric Schmalzbauer(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsPoint72 VenturesREFASHIOND Ventures
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsVela PartnersVermilion Cliffs Ventures
Readyset is a database scaling platform that sits in front of existing MySQL and PostgreSQL databases to accelerate read performance with sub-millisecond latencies.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsBeverly Hills, US
Alana Renda(Founder)inNatalie Lao(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAmplify PartnersIndex VenturesThe E14 FundZero Prime Ventures
Cloud infrastructure security startup whose guardrails platform made secure, compliant resource provisioning the default for developers.
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzFelicis VenturesGeneral Partnership
Restate is a lightweight runtime that turns AI agents, workflows, and backend services into durable processes with durable execution, consistent state, and reliable communication.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSanta Clara, US
Igal Shilman(Director)Till Rohrmann(Director)Stephan Ewen(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Ahmed Farghal(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsfirstminute capitalRedpoint Ventures
Rosebud AI provides generative AI tools that enable users to create games and immersive interactive experiences without requiring extensive technical expertise.
AI & Machine LearningConsumerCreator EconomyDeveloper ToolsGamingSan Francisco, US
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors2am VCAngel Collective Opportunity FundFoothill VenturesKhosla VenturesY CombinatorAnimoca Brands
Runebook builds user interfaces for large language models, including Tome, a local LLM client with MCP support.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Peter Cho(Executive Officer, Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Herald is an AI SRE (site reliability engineering) agent that builds a context graph across observability data, codebase, CI/CD, docs, and dependencies to detect anomalies, investigate incidents, and deliver root-cause analyses before alerts fire.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsZero Prime Ventures
Sardine provides a fraud investigation platform that contextualizes risk across customers, devices, transactions, and businesses within an organization's ecosystem.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityFintechSan Francisco, US
Soups Ranjan(Founder & CEO)inAdi G(Founder)Zahid Shaikh(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors11.2 CapitalActivant CapitalAndreessen HorowitzCannage CapitalCoinbase VenturesCross Creek Advisors+14 more
.png)
Saris builds an AI platform for banks and credit unions to automate workflow tasks and enhance employee productivity without replacing human workers.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFintech
James Dang(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investors8VCAudaciousBTECH CONSORTIUMHomebrew
Sentio provides a decentralized, AI-powered modular data and compute network for Web3 developers, offering tools such as a data processor and hosted subgraphs.
Crypto & Web3Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSeattle, US
Fuyao Zhao(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Fused is an end-to-end Python platform with data-aware AI that lets data teams and individuals explore data using natural-language prompts, build charts, and share results, including geospatial analysis.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureSaaSNew York, US
Isaac Brodsky(Founder)Sina Kashuk(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFontinalis PartnersMyriad Venture Partners
Signadot provides a Kubernetes-native developer platform that simplifies the development of cloud-native applications by enabling faster feedback loops and collaborative testing at scale.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Arjun Iyer(Founder)inAnirudh Ramanathan(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsRedpoint VenturesY Combinator
Torq offers an AI-based Security Operations Center (SOC) platform that helps security teams triage, investigate, and respond to threats.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecuritySaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
formae is an open-source infrastructure-as-code tool that uses the Pkl language to model infrastructure across cloud, clusters, and other estates, continuously discovering out-of-band changes and letting engineers evolve infrastructure through precise, minimal-blast-radius code changes.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsbacktrace capitalPeak
Blacksburg, US
Ray Jenkins(Executive Officer, Director)Mike Heffner(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardJoseph Ruscio(Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsHeavybitUncork Capital
Superframe is a customer intelligence platform that consolidates customer signals into a context layer for AI-powered go-to-market teams, providing cited answers to GTM questions.
AI & Machine LearningSaaSSales TechPalo Alto, US
Derek Steer(Executive Officer, Director)Nick Bruun(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardDan Scholnick(Director)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsDesigner FundESSENCE VC
Open lakehouse storage platform by the creators of Apache Iceberg (Databricks)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzSV AngelUnusual VenturesValkyrie Ventures Management, LlcAltimeter CapitalZetta Venture Partners
Teleskope offers a data security platform with a "Data Reasoning Layer" that discovers, classifies, and automatically remediates sensitive data exposure across an organization's environment.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareNew York, US
Elizabeth Nammour(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)inJulie Trias(Director)
BoardBrian Schechter(Director)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsA'Z AngelsPrimary Venture Partners
Eva is an AI-powered research platform that conducts and maintains systematic reviews and meta-analyses by continuously updating them as new clinical trials emerge.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareHealthtechMedical DevicesSan Francisco, US
Cyrus Nouroozi(Co-Founder)inAmir Mehr(Co-Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsY Combinator
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Truffle Security develops TruffleHog, an open-source secrets scanning tool that identifies and remediates exposed credentials such as encryption keys in cloud and SaaS environments before exploitation.
CybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Dylan Ayrey(Founder & CEO)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAbstract VenturesAndreessen HorowitzExpaHarpoon VenturesESSENCE VCIntel Capital+2 more
Turso is a database engine built as a Rust rewrite of SQLite, adding concurrent writes, native vector search, cloud-native replication, and browser/on-device support via WebAssembly.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsLondon, CA
Glauber Costa(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsFirst Star VenturesMango CapitalNorwest Venture PartnersPreston-Werner Ventures
Uniform is a digital experience platform (DXP) that combines content management, orchestration, personalization, and agentic AI for building and managing digital experiences.
AI & Machine LearningMarketing TechSaaS
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Unify provides AI agents that handle routine business tasks across communications, sales, operations, and engineering by executing pre-built workflows or custom automation.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkSaaSLondon, GB
Daniel Lenton(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsA.Capital VenturesAbstraction CapitalBattery VenturesJ12 VenturesLeonis CapitalLunar Ventures+9 more
Unkey is an API management platform for developers, designed to handle API workflows including integration and scaling.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaS
James Perkins(Co-founder)inAndreas Thomas(Co-founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsUncork CapitalESSENCE VCDeep AcreHomebrewPreston-Werner Ventures
Unstructured transforms complex, unstructured data (64+ file types) into clean, structured data suitable for AI and analysis, handling ETL, security, compliance, and integrations across enterprise systems.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise Software
Brian Raymond(Founder & CEO)Brian S. Raymond(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundM12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund)Madrona Venture GroupMango CapitalMenlo VenturesBain Capital Ventures+4 more
Warp builds an agentic development environment that began as a re-imagined terminal and now lets developers dispatch AI agents to write, deploy, and debug software.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSaaS
Zach Lloyd(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsBoxGroupContraryNext Play VenturesBattery Ventures
Wizia monitors a health plan's existing claims, eligibility, and pharmacy data to detect when a member should take a cost-saving action, then sends plan-branded text messages prompting that action and measures the dollars saved.
Digital HealthHealthtechInsurTech
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Workbrew is a management platform for Homebrew that lets teams centrally deploy software from a library of 15k+ packages, enforce policies, manage vulnerabilities, and keep packages patched.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareConcord, US
Vanessa Gennarelli(Founder)
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsOperator Collective
Vectara is an enterprise agent platform for building AI agents deployable via SaaS, customer-managed VPC, or on-premise, with model-agnostic support and built-in governance.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareCupertino, US
Tallat M. Shafaat(Founder)Amr Awadallah(Founder)in
PartnerTimothy Chen· solo GP
Co-investorsBrighter CapitalFusionMDSV CAPITALPage One VenturesSamsung NextSparkLabs Korea+5 more
Exits · 2
IPOs and acquisitions across the tracked portfolioBasisacq. by DigitsDodgeballacq. by Spreedly
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companies
Stay tuned · entrepreneurindia.com · Aug 19, 2026
Chroma · contagionlive.com · Aug 18, 2026
Dodgeball · uk.news.yahoo.com · Aug 15, 2026
Letta · theagentsindex.com · Jul 27, 2026
Tabular · digitaltoday.co.kr · Jul 20, 2026
highlight.io · tipranks.com · Jul 17, 2026
Jasper.ai · jasperlocal.com · Jul 17, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- What stage does Essence Venture Capital invest at?
- Essence Venture Capital invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed stages.
- What is Essence Venture Capital's typical check size?
- Essence Venture Capital typically writes checks of $10K – $10M.
- What sectors does Essence Venture Capital focus on?
- Essence Venture Capital focuses on Crypto & Web3.
- Where is Essence Venture Capital located?
- Essence Venture Capital is headquartered in Seattle, US.
- Does Essence Venture Capital lead rounds?
- Essence Venture Capital typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.
Co-investors · 34
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, known for pioneering the platform model with a large team of operators supporting founders across stages.
Redpoint Ventures is a venture capital firm established in 1999 by former partners from leading venture firms, focusing on early-stage technology companies across multiple sectors. The firm leverages its partners' technology investment experience and an extensive network of entrepreneurs and industry contacts to support portfolio company growth.
Craft Ventures is a venture capital firm run by a team of former founders, operators, and investors who partner closely with founders to help build and scale technology companies.
Uncork Capital (formerly SoftTech VC) is a seed-stage venture firm that invests early in founders, with a focus on AI-native companies building leverage and scale.
Coinbase Ventures is the venture investment arm of Coinbase that backs early-stage founders building across the crypto and Web3 ecosystem.
Cowboy Ventures is an early-stage venture firm focused on partnering with startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, offering hands-on support to help build enduring companies.
Mango Capital is an early-stage venture firm investing in enterprise software founders at inception, before product-market fit, with a focus on agent infrastructure and intelligent applications.
Sequoia Capital is a venture capital firm that partners with founders to build technology companies.
Alumni Ventures (AV) is a venture capital firm that co-invests alongside lead VCs in startups, backing founders with capital and access to a large investor and operator community.
Red Swan Ventures backs founders at the earliest stage, aiming to be a founder's first outside capital, focusing on companies born from platform shifts and cultural insight that serve enduring human needs.
Vibe Capital is a $10M venture fund investing in Web3, AI, and Deep Science startups at the pre-seed and seed stage.
AIX Ventures is an AI-focused venture fund that backs founders building companies in artificial intelligence.
▶22 more co-investors
468 CapitalPeakHeavybitM12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund)firstminute capitalCusp Capitalbacktrace capitalBull City Venture PartnersEverywhere VenturesAtomicoBowery CapitalDCM VenturesAwesome People VenturesSeed Club VenturesGutter CapitalAthletico VenturesAngular VenturesRembrandt Venture PartnersGanas VenturesQuest Venture PartnersTrail Run CapitalArtisanal Ventures
Firms observed investing alongside Essence Venture Capital, from public investor directories. Shared companies are the overlap with Essence Venture Capital's recorded portfolio.
Similar investors
AirTree Ventures runs Pathfinders, a free four-week in-person program in Sydney for young builders (high-school graduates up to age 23) to work on a real product, access the AirTree team and founders, and build a peer network.
August Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in a small number of companies, providing hands-on support to entrepreneurs building their businesses.
.jpeg){kind=logo}
B Capital is a global investment firm backing early to late-stage technology innovators across technology, healthcare, and energy & resilience sectors.
Blueyard is a small equal partnership with offices in the US and Europe, investing in early-stage companies.
Breyer Capital is a venture capital firm that backs high-impact entrepreneurs, making strategic investments guided by founder passion and its network of experienced investors.