Menlo Park · Pre-Seed–Series A · 10 people tracked
Investment thesis
First Spark Ventures invests in Deep Tech startups with fundamental technological insights, focusing on three areas: Advanced Compute, Digital Biology & Biotech, and CyberPhysical Systems. The firm backs companies raising pre-seed, seed, and Series A rounds, looking for stellar teams, large accessible markets, and massive sustainable differentiation. It operates an interdisciplinary team, in partnership with SRI International, to support founders throughout their journey from lab to market.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 25, 2026.
Team · 10 people
from the firm's website & public directories
Founder mafia
3 people who came through First Spark Ventures, Llc went on to found or lead other companies.
What they invest in
from 24 of 31 portfolio companiesAI & Machine Learning ×16Deep Tech ×9Biotech ×7Hardware ×5Medical Devices ×5Digital Health ×4Data & Infrastructure ×3Enterprise Software ×3
HQs:United States×14Germany×1United Kingdom×1
Who they back
founder profiles across 12 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×42 founders×63 founders×14+ founders×1
Where their founders studiedfrom 10 founders with education data
Cornell University ×2Novosibirsk State University (NSU) ×2University of Cambridge ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 12 founders with career history
DeepMind ×2IBM ×2Stanford University ×2
Investments · 31 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBy year:2023 · 22019 · 13 dated
FIGUR8 is an FDA-registered platform that provides objective, actionable insights for musculoskeletal health diagnosis and treatment.
AI & Machine LearningHardwareHealthtechMedical DevicesBoston, US
Nan-Wei Gong(CEO and Founder)in
Co-investorsPhoenix Venture PartnersChloe CapitalDigiTx Partners LLCEvolution VC PartnersGRIDS CapitalP5 Health Ventures+2 more
Alljoined develops neural decoding technology using machine learning to enable computers to interpret human brain activity, aiming to enhance human capability, mental health, and interpersonal understanding.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDigital HealthHealthtechSan Francisco, US
Jonathan(CEO)Anthony(Chief Scientific Officer)
Co-investorsAngel Collective Opportunity FundCompoundEvolution VC PartnersTranspose Platform Management
Confidencial provides data-centric security technology that protects sensitive information automatically at the point of creation or ingestion, for organizations across industries handling confidential documents and data.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityData & InfrastructureEnterprise Software
Karim Eldefrawy(CTO & Co-Founder)in
Co-investorsPerot Jain
Curve Pay is a digital wallet that combines multiple bank cards into one, letting users switch which card paid for a purchase after the fact, avoid foreign exchange fees, and earn cashback on top of existing card rewards.
ConsumerFintech
Shachar Bialick(Founder & CEO)
Co-investorsCohen CircleFuel Venture CapitalHanaco Venture CapitalLifeX VenturesMouro CapitalOutward VC+7 more
Enhancing chronic disease care through precision medicine.
Curve Bio builds Whole-Body Intelligence models from its Whole-Body Atlas, a molecular map of the body, to power blood tests that monitor organ health in chronic disease patients.
AI & Machine LearningBiotechDigital HealthDallas, US
Nathan Hunkapiller(Founder)Prof. Shan Wang, PhD(Chief Innovation Officer and Scientific Founder)Ritish Patnaik, PhD(Chief Executive Officer)
Co-investorsLifeX VenturesNZVC
Endometrics is a molecular diagnostics company developing non-invasive tests for women's health that use menstrual blood as an organ-proximal liquid biopsy, with an initial focus on endometriosis.
BiotechDigital HealthFemTechSanta Clara, US
Dr. Aznavour(CEO & Founder)Yana Aznavour(CEO & Founder)
Co-investorsGranatus Ventures
Flower develops collaborative AI infrastructure and tools, including federated learning platforms, AI agents, and language models that enable organizations to build and deploy AI networks while maintaining data privacy and control.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareHamburg, DE
Daniel J. Beutel(Founder)inNic Lane(Founder)inTaner Topal(Founder)inNicholas Lane(Founder)
Co-investorsBetaworksFelicis VenturesMozilla VenturesY Combinator
Flower builds a full-stack platform for collaborative and federated AI, including a federated learning framework (Flower SuperGrid), an LLM (Flower Model), and an AI agent (Flower Agent), enabling model training across decentralized data without centralizing it.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
The best general purpose agents for builders.
Fundamental Research Labs builds autonomous, socially intelligent AI agents capable of reasoning and multi-agent collaboration.
AI & Machine Learning
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzA16Z SpeedrunCastor Ventures (an Alumni Ventures Fund)Factorial FundsPatronVamosVentures
Inlyte designs and manufactures iron-sodium (sodium metal chloride) batteries for commercial, industrial, and utility-scale energy storage systems.
CleantechEnergyHardwareBerkeley, US
Co-investorsAt One VenturesTechEnergy VenturesValo Ventures
Inworld AI provides a full-duplex audio streaming platform that enables real-time conversational AI interactions with intelligent turn-taking, function calling, and multi-model routing capabilities for developers building conversational applications.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsMountain View, US
Ilya Gelfenbeyn(Founder)inKylan Gibbs(Founder)inMichael Ermolenko(Founder)in
Co-investorsBitkraft Esports VenturesBrave CapitalCRV (Charles River Ventures)Dentsu VenturesDisney AcceleratorIntel Capital+11 more
Latent AI builds tools and services for deploying, optimizing, and updating machine learning models at the edge, including in disconnected real-world environments across varied hardware and device fleets.
AI & Machine LearningDefense TechEnterprise Software
Sek Chai(Founder)in
Co-investorsBlackhorn VenturesBooz Allen VenturesDoon CapitalFuture VenturesGrit VenturesLockheed Martin Ventures
Nimble Sciences develops the SIMBA GI Platform, a swallowable capsule system that autonomously collects, seals, and preserves fluid biopsies from the small intestine to generate multi-omic datasets of the GI tract.
BiotechDigital HealthMedical Devices
Co-investorsFusionStartup TNTThin Air LabsUCeed FundsBoxOne VenturesSeventure Partners
Normal Factory provides manufacturing services including CNC milling and turning, 3D printing, laser cutting and marking, board repair, and inspection for industrial clients.
Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningHardwareSan Francisco, US
Anson Yu(Founder)inHudhayfa Nazoordeen(Founder)in
Co-investorsY CombinatorMicron VenturesSamsung Catalyst Fund
Normal Computing develops software and hardware infrastructure optimizing AI models for physical systems through custom silicon design and advanced EDA tools.
AI & Machine LearningHardwareSemiconductorsSan Francisco, US
Faris Sbahi(Executive Officer, Director)inAntonio Martinez(Founder)inMatthias Tan(Founder)inAaron Sisto(Director)Yui-Hong Matthias Tan(Executive Officer, Director)
Co-investorsCelesta CapitalDrive CapitalSamsung Catalyst FundSamsung NextMicron Ventures
Full stack platform for Probabilistic AI.
Normal builds AI-driven electronic design automation (EDA) software and custom ASIC silicon based on novel device physics, aimed at improving AI inference efficiency per dollar and per watt.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechSemiconductors
Co-investorsMicron Ventures
Co-investorsMcKesson VenturesTau Ventures
High quality outpatient surgical care.
Radical Numerics develops AI models and architectures built for biology, including multimodal generative models trained on biological data to support genomic discovery and gene-editing.
AI & Machine LearningBiotechDeep Tech
Eric Nguyen(Founder)inMichael Poli(Founder)in
Co-investorsObvious Ventures
Simulon builds an iPhone-based visual effects app that composites photorealistic 3D assets into live-action footage.
Co-investorsGMG VenturesMercuri.vc
SoloPulse develops advanced physics-based and AI-powered systems for threat detection and intelligence gathering, offering SIGMA™ for payload-based situational awareness and NOVA™ for synthetic aperture radar processing across unmanned and satellite platforms.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechDefense Tech
Co-investorsCrosscut VenturesCantos Ventures
SynthLabs develops reinforcement learning methods for large reasoning models, such as Adaptive Length Penalty (ALP), which adjusts generation length to problem difficulty to reduce token usage.
AI & Machine LearningDeep Tech
Nathan Lile(Founder)inFrancis deSouza(Founder)in
Co-investorsM12 (Microsoft's Venture Fund)
Tidal Metals uses patented electrochemical technology to produce primary magnesium from seawater or desalination brine using clean electricity, aiming to re-establish domestic magnesium production in the United States.
CleantechDeep TechNew Materials
Howard Yuh(Founder)in
Co-investorsDCVC (Data Collective)
Unnatural Products is a drug discovery platform company that develops synthetic macrocycles to target previously undruggable disease targets.
AI & Machine LearningBiotechDeep TechMedical DevicesSanta Cruz, US
Cameron Pye(Co-Founder & CEO)inJoshua Schwochert(Co-Founder & CSO)
BoardVasudev Bailey(Director)in
Co-investorsAbstract VenturesArtis VenturesAsset Management CompanyBetter Ventures Central LlcBlue Bear VenturesDroia Ventures+6 more
Valitor develops bioactive molecule therapies using a multivalent biopolymer technology platform to create long-acting treatments for ophthalmologic diseases, with its lead candidate VLTR-559 targeting wet age-related macular degeneration.
BiotechMedical DevicesBerkeley, US
Wesley Jackson(President, Chief Scientific Officer & Member of the Board)Gregory D. Kunst(Chief Executive Officer)Carole H Bellis(Executive Officer)Kevin E Healy(Director)Jackson M Wesley(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardDrew Lanza(Director)in
Co-investorsAngel Physicians FundBerkeley CatalystExSight VenturesPandect Bioventures
Vitara Biomedical develops medical technology for the care of extremely premature newborns.
BiotechDeep TechHealthtechMedical DevicesPhiladelphia, US
Bernard Lyons(Executive Officer, Director)James McGlone(Executive Officer, Director)Jeffrey Kahn(Executive Officer)
BoardThomas Todorow(Director)Ian Ratcliffe(Director)Manish Kothari(Director)in
Co-investorsJazzya InvestmentsKhosla VenturesMyelin VC
Xona Space Systems operates Pulsar, a positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) service delivered from a constellation of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit that broadcasts a new signal to augment or replace GPS.
Deep TechHardwareSpace TechBurlingame, US
Brian Manning(Executive Officer, Director)inTyler Reid(Director)inAdrien Perkins(Director)
BoardSky Dayton(Director)inLewis Jones(Director)inJeff Crusey(Director)in
Co-investorsArmada Investment AGBeyond Earth VenturesCapital InnovatorsCross Culture VenturesIceNineIndustrious Ventures+16 more
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companiesCurve · news.curve.finance · Aug 10, 2026
Inworld AI · businesswire.com · Jun 10, 2026
Normal · techcompanynews.com · Mar 27, 2026
Xona Space Systems · payloadspace.com · Mar 27, 2026
Normal Computing · finsmes.com · Mar 25, 2026
Flower · equalocean.com · Sep 3, 2025
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has First Spark Ventures, Llc made?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc has 30 tracked investments.
- What stage does First Spark Ventures, Llc invest at?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
- What sectors does First Spark Ventures, Llc focus on?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Biotech, Cybersecurity, Deep Tech, Hardware, Robotics.
- Where is First Spark Ventures, Llc located?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc is headquartered in Menlo Park, US.
- Does First Spark Ventures, Llc lead rounds?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.
- Who does First Spark Ventures, Llc co-invest with?
- First Spark Ventures, Llc most often shares deals with Beyond Earth Ventures, Booz Allen Ventures, DCVC (Data Collective), among 91 tracked co-investors.
Images
Co-investors · 3
Patron is an early-stage venture firm that backs founders building consumer and application startups that have already launched, focusing on intuitive, automated, and taste-driven products.
Benchmark is a venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco and Woodside that invests in early-stage startups.
Unknown Ventures is a venture studio based in Austin that provides funding and operational support to early-stage startups at the pre-seed to Series A stage. The firm backs founders seeking to create innovative solutions that improve human experience.
Firms observed investing alongside First Spark Ventures, Llc, from public investor directories. Shared companies are the overlap with First Spark Ventures, Llc's recorded portfolio.
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