Fundraising Fox

MDSV CAPITAL

Venture capitalActively deploying

Palo Alto · Pre-Seed–Growth · 4 people tracked

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1,062 people in our graph share verified history with the MDSV CAPITAL team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.

Charles Callunlockedknows Michael Downing · together at University of California, Davis (overlapped)
×4knows the team · via Facebook
×6knows the team · via Stanford University
knows the team · via PayPal
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Investment thesis

MDSV Capital pursues an 'Emerging Manager Alpha at Scale' strategy, investing in the top 1% of sub-$100M emerging manager funds (EMFs) to gain balanced early-stage exposure, then leveraging those funds' untapped pro-rata rights to invest directly in the fastest-growing early-growth outliers within their portfolios. The firm anchors its ecosystem with The Promontory, an invitation-only community of emerging managers and LPs, plus the Emerging Horizons conference series and quarterly events, giving it data intelligence and early access to promising companies. Its Emerging Outliers Fund targets sectors tied to the current innovation supercycle, including AI, B2B enterprise, defense tech, deep tech, and the automation economy. It also runs a Capital Extension Program serving as an 'Opportunity Fund' for EMFs.

Source: firm website, verified Aug 23, 2026.

Stage
Pre-Seed–Growth
HQ
Palo Alto, US
Instruments
Equity
Founded
2021
Tracked investments
23

Team · 4 people

from the firm's website & public directories
Semin Valani· Managing Partnerin
Eric Woo· Venture Partnerin

What they invest in

from 17 of 23 portfolio companies

AI & Machine Learning ×11Fintech ×6Enterprise Software ×5Crypto & Web3 ×4SaaS ×4Defense Tech ×3Cloud Computing ×2Cybersecurity ×2

HQs:United States×11

Who they back

founder profiles across 13 portfolio companies
69%
solo founders
9 of 13 mapped founding teams
62%
repeat founders
of 13 founders with career history

Founding team size:solo founder×92 founders×33 founders×1

Where their founders studiedfrom 11 founders with education data

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ×2

What their founders studiedfrom 12 founders with field-of-study data

Engineering ×6Computer Science ×3Business & Management ×2

Accelerator rootsportfolio companies that came through a program

Y Combinator ×2

Investments · 23 tracked

founders shown can be your intro path
Authenticitiauthenticiti.ioSep 2022SEC filingmedium confidence

San Francisco, US

Jeong Woo Park(Executive Officer, Director)Athanasios Panagiotis Karachotzitis(Executive Officer, Director)Andrew Yang(Executive Officer, Director)

BoardBahram Nour-Omid(Director)

Board seatMichael Downing· per SEC Form D · $3.7M raise · filed Sep 2022

Co-investorsBlackhorn VenturesSilicon Badia

AccuKnox Risk-Adjacentaccuknox.comin𝕏

AccuKnox provides automated adversarial testing for large language models, machine learning models, and cloud AI infrastructure to detect security vulnerabilities including prompt injection, jailbreaks, hallucinations, and misconfigurations.

AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingCybersecurityEnterprise Software

Rahul Jadhav(Founder)in

Co-investorsAvanta VenturesDreamit VenturesNational Grid PartnersDolby Family VenturesOutliers VCZ5 Capital

Andurilanduril.comin

Anduril builds autonomous systems and software for defense and military applications, including attack aviation, unmanned aircraft, and underwater vehicles, unified by an autonomy platform.

AI & Machine LearningDefense TechHardwareRobotics

Palmer Luckey(Founder)inBrian Schimpf(CEO)inTrae Stephens(Founder)in

Co-investors137 Ventures1Flourish Capital8VCAltra VentureAndreessen HorowitzAnorak Ventures+82 more

Arcoscanarcoscan.com

Arcoscan develops biometric and AI-based age verification technology, built in collaboration with SRI International, that identifies a user's age through a face scan rather than physical IDs.

AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeep Tech

Co-investorsSparq Capital (SFO)

Banking & Payments Compliance Platformkompliant.cominAcquired

Kompliant provides compliance orchestration for financial institutions through intelligent automation to manage risk and regulatory requirements.

AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaS

Co-investorsCasa Verde Capital

Castlecastle.finance𝕏

Castle offers a treasury yield management product that lets DAOs and other liquidity providers put their treasury assets to work in DeFi according to their risk profile.

Crypto & Web3Fintech

Cyphercypherhq.ioin𝕏

Cypher provides a non-custodial crypto card and payment protocol that enables users to spend cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in everyday life with in-app swaps and cross-chain bridges.

Crypto & Web3FintechSan Francisco, US

Kuberan Marimuthu(Founder)inJOHN WALKER(CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND MEMBER OF BOARD OF MANAGERS)

BoardGLEN D MELLA(MEMBER OF BOARD OF MANAGERS)BRANDON D FUGAL(MEMBER OF BOARD OF MANAGERS)R. DUFF THOMPSON(MEMBER OF BOARD OF MANAGERS)DAVID DAME(MEMBER OF BOARD OF MANAGERS)

Co-investorsY CombinatorCoinbase VenturesLeonis CapitalTRAC (Third Round Analytics Capital)RevRoad Venture

Designerfunddesignerfund.com

Designer Fund is a venture capital firm founded by designers that invests in and advises early-stage startups whose founders prioritize design.

Sector Agnostic

Enrique Allen(Co-Founder and Managing Partner)

FalconXfalconx.ioin𝕏

FalconX is a digital assets prime brokerage providing institutional clients with 24/7 access to liquidity and capital solutions through proprietary technology designed for risk management in volatile markets.

Crypto & Web3FintechSan Mateo, US

Raghu Yarlagadda(Founder)inAustin ReidinSuzy WaltherinBrian CristinVanessa Zhangin

BoardShekhar Kirani(Executive Officer, Director)in

Co-investorsAccelAccompliceB Capital GroupB4 CapitalCleo CapitalCoinbase Ventures+11 more

HF0hf0.com

HF0 is a residency program for repeat founders, providing a cohort-based batch structure that culminates in a demo day.

Future of Work

Co-investorsDeep AcreIntegra GroupeLevel Ventures

Incisiveincisive.vc𝕏

Incisive Ventures is a pre-seed venture fund based in Seattle that invests in technology companies focused on reducing friction at scale.

Sector AgnosticSeattle, US

Martin Tobias(Managing Partner & Founder)

BoardNataraj Sindam(Venture Partner)

Leo Labsleolabs.spacein𝕏

LeoLabs operates a network of ground-based radars and an AI-enabled cloud platform that tracks and maps objects and activity in low Earth orbit.

AI & Machine LearningDefense TechSpace Tech

Daniel Ceperley(Founder)in

Co-investorsHemisphere Ventures LLCNZ Growth Capital PartnersSeraphim SpaceSpace CapitalSparq Capital (SFO)Velvet Sea Ventures+2 more

ORIori.coin𝕏

Radiant builds compute infrastructure and services designed to operate as a utility, providing the foundational platform for AI and intelligence applications at scale.

AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingData & Infrastructure

Mahdi Yahya(President)inVishal Padiyar(Executive Chairman)

Co-investorsBanyan VenturesEpisode1Insiders VenturesInvariantes FundSparq Capital (SFO)Flucas Ventures

Originalcapitaloriginalcapital.com

Original Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in founders building vertical software and fintech companies.

Enterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSMiami, US

Sumeet GajriRamnik Arora

Recursiveventuresrecursiveventures.com𝕏

Recursive Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm investing in US pre-seed and seed technology startups applying artificial intelligence.

AI & Machine LearningSan Francisco, US

Silent Venturessilentvc.comin

Silent Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in founders building aerospace, defense, and national security companies.

Deep TechDefense TechDallas, US

Jackson Moses(Founder & Managing Partner)in

Co-investorsIronGate Capital AdvisorsAirbusBlackstone

SkyLinktryskylink.cominAcquired

SkyLink is an AI-powered chat-based corporate travel booking platform that enables users to book flights and hotels in seconds through conversational interfaces while automatically applying company travel policies and preferences.

AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareSaaSTravel & HospitalityNew York City, US

Atyab Bhatti(Founder)inKush Maheshwari(Founder)in

Co-investorsAbstract VenturesEthos VCRoot and Shoot VenturesY CombinatorGold House Ventures

Snipersniper.xyz𝕏

Solsniper is an AI-powered trading terminal for Solana memecoins, offering features like MemeScope, trending and holdings tracking, and QuantGPT to help crypto traders.

AI & Machine LearningCrypto & Web3Fintech

Co-investorsD1 VenturesSevenX Ventures

Vitrinavitrina.aiin𝕏

Vitrina is a membership-based intelligence platform for the global entertainment supply chain, offering an AI assistant (VIQI) plus a curated database of companies, content titles, and executive profiles to help users plan content acquisitions, raise production financing, and find production, distribution, and vendor partners.

AI & Machine LearningMedia & EntertainmentSaaS

Atul Phadnis(Founder)in

Co-investorsArka Venture LabsFoster VenturesSparq Capital (SFO)

ZIR-AIvectara.comin𝕏

Vectara is an enterprise AI agent platform for building, deploying, and governing AI agents with retrieval-augmented generation, offering high accuracy and low hallucination rates.

AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareCupertino, US

Tallat M. Shafaat(Founder)inAmr Awadallah(Founder)in

Co-investorsRace CapitalBrighter CapitalFusionPage One VenturesSamsung NextSparkLabs Korea+5 more

Other

Tracked investments with no reachable website or further public details — typically companies that wound down, renamed, or were absorbed.

encounterFeldventuresRatio

Rows marked “SEC filing” are inferred from directors named on the company's SEC Form D — public regulatory data, not a portfolio list published by the firm.

Portfolio news

latest coverage across their companies

Frequently asked questions

How many investments has MDSV CAPITAL made?
MDSV CAPITAL has 22 tracked investments, 2 of which have exited via acquisition or IPO.
What stage does MDSV CAPITAL invest at?
MDSV CAPITAL invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Growth stages.
What sectors does MDSV CAPITAL focus on?
MDSV CAPITAL focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Consumer, Crypto & Web3, Deep Tech, Defense Tech, Developer Tools, Enterprise Software, Future of Work, IoT, PropTech, Robotics, SaaS, Social, Space Tech.
Where is MDSV CAPITAL located?
MDSV CAPITAL is headquartered in Palo Alto, US.
Who does MDSV CAPITAL co-invest with?
MDSV CAPITAL most often shares deals with Sparq Capital (SFO), Coinbase Ventures, Y Combinator, among 52 tracked co-investors.

Media · Podcasts & interviews

featuring the team

LP10X - GPs don't need LPs to start investing - Michael Downing, Founding Partner, MDSV Capital

VC10X with Prashant Choubey · Michael Downing

Images

MDSV CAPITAL photo

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