OSS Capital
Venture capitalActively deployingSan Francisco · Pre-Seed–Series A · 5 people tracked
Also known as OSS CAPITAL, LLC
Find your way into OSS Capital
2,051 people in our graph share verified history with the OSS Capital team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.
Investment thesis
OSS Capital invests exclusively in early-stage commercial open source software (COSS) startups on a global basis. The firm draws on a network of 50+ COSS founders behind companies such as GitLab, Elastic, and Red Hat to help founders scale. A core belief is that COSS companies can be far more capital-efficient than the historical norm — where leading firms raised $300M+ to reach $100M in annual revenue — arguing future leaders can reach similar scale with just 10-30% of that funding and grow into profitable public companies. It aims to broaden open source adoption across every category.
Source: firm website, verified Sep 15, 2026.
Team · 5 people
from the firm's website
What they invest in
from 31 of 34 portfolio companiesDeveloper Tools ×17AI & Machine Learning ×14Enterprise Software ×13SaaS ×12Data & Infrastructure ×9Deep Tech ×6Cloud Computing ×5Crypto & Web3 ×4
HQs:United States×9Canada×2Germany×2United Kingdom×2Singapore×1
Who they back
founder profiles across 14 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×102 founders×24+ founders×2
What their founders studiedfrom 20 founders with field-of-study data
Computer Science ×12Engineering ×4Economics ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 21 founders with career history
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ×4Godot Engine ×2TIDEFI ×2
Accelerator rootsportfolio companies that came through a program
6 founders hold a PhD (of 20 with degree data)
Investments · 34 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBy year:2026 · 12024 · 12023 · 62022 · 12021 · 413 dated
AppFlowy is an open-source workspace platform for wikis and projects that prioritizes data privacy and user control, designed for teams and individuals seeking an alternative to proprietary collaboration tools like Notion and Airtable.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsFuture of WorkSaaS
Annie Wang(Co-Founder)in
Co-investorsHongShan Capital Group
Formbricks is an open source survey platform focused on privacy that lets teams create surveys to understand their customers.
Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaS
Peer Richelsen(Co-founder)
OpenBB built financial infrastructure software and platforms for investment research, including a terminal, SDK, workspace, copilot, and Excel add-in, serving buy-side and sell-side financial institutions and individual analysts.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsFintechSaaSLondon, GB
Didier Lopes(Founder & CEO)in
Liquid AI builds device-native foundation models (LFMs) designed to run efficiently on processors outside data centers, such as phones, laptops, and cars, under latency, privacy, and hardware constraints.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechEnterprise SoftwareBrookline, US
Daniela Rus(Co-founder)inMathias Lechner(Co-founder & CTO)inRamin Hasani(Co-founder & CEO)inAlexander Amini(Co-founder & CSO)inLouis Hunt(Executive Officer)Stephen Pagliuca(Director)
Board seatJoseph Jacks· per SEC Form D
Co-investorsBold Capital PartnersDuke Capital PartnersGlasswing VenturesIsaiISAI GestionLink Ventures+5 more
Aitomatic builds industrial AI that captures an organization's expert knowledge into a domain knowledge graph ("Cognitive Ontology") and deploys agents that reason with that institutional knowledge to handle tasks like case review, anomaly resolution, and regulatory analysis.
Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningDeep TechEnterprise SoftwareSemiconductors
Christopher Nguyen(Founder)in
Co-investorsCapria VenturesBloomberg Beta
Aleph Alpha develops specialized language models and AI solutions for enterprise and public sector organizations in Europe, prioritizing data sovereignty, regulatory compliance, and domain-specific customization on European infrastructure.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechEnterprise SoftwareHeidelberg, DE
Samuel Weinbach(Co-Chief Research Officer, Co-Founder)inIlhan Scheer(Co-Chief Executive Officer)inReto Spörri(Co-Chief Executive Officer)in
Co-investorsBosch VenturesBurda Principal InvestmentsCavalry VenturesD11ZEarlybird DWES Management GmbH & Co. KGEarlybird Venture Capital+8 more
Bittensor is an open, decentralized network where independent subnets produce digital commodities and contributors are paid in the TAO token.
AI & Machine LearningCrypto & Web3Data & InfrastructureToronto, CA
Jacob Robert Steeves(Founder)in
Co-investorsCollab+CurrencyDigital Currency GroupLvna CapitalTruth Ventures
BoxyHQ builds identity and access management (IAM) and customer identity and access management (CIAM) solutions, serving organizations that need visibility, flexibility, and control over their digital identity infrastructure.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareLondon
Aeneas Rekkas(Founder & CTO)Carlos Enrique Samame Galdos(Executive Officer, Director)Deepak Prabhakara(Executive Officer, Director)Jeff Kukowski(CEO)
Co-investorsMMC Ventures
Cal.com provides scheduling software for sales teams to coordinate client meetings, demos, and discovery calls, with features like round-robin assignment, collective events, routing forms, and automated reminders.
Developer ToolsFuture of WorkHR TechSaaSSales Tech
Bailey Pumfleet(Founder)in
Co-investorsiThink VCLodge FamilyObvious VenturesBalaji SrinivasanFlex Capital Partners
Cerbos provides a centralized authorization layer that externalizes access control logic from application code, enabling fine-grained runtime permission decisions for users, service accounts, and AI agents.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareLondon, GB
Charith E(Founder)
Co-investors8-Bit CapitalCrane Venture PartnersOMERS VenturesAcequia Capital (AceCap)
CrabNebula provides cloud infrastructure services to help developers build, develop, and distribute applications.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper Tools
Daniel Thompson(Chief Executive Officer)inLucas Nogueira(Chief Technology Officer)in
Dagster Labs develops Dagster, an open-source data orchestration platform with a commercial cloud offering.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US
Nick Schrock(Founder)in
Co-investorsAmplify PartnersCoatue Managementf7 VenturesZero Prime Ventures8VCGeorgian+3 more
DataStax provides enterprise-grade database infrastructure and AI development tools, including Astra DB (a NoSQL vector database built on Apache Cassandra), Hyper-Converged Database for on-premises deployments, and Langflow (an open-source low-code platform for building generative AI applications).
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Jonathan Ellis(Executive Officer, Director)inClint Smith(Executive Officer)inBilly Bosworth(Executive Officer, Director)Dennis Wolf(Executive Officer)inDavor Bonaciin
Co-investorsAkkadian VenturesComcast VenturesCross Creek AdvisorsCrosslink CapitalInvestXKleiner Perkins+10 more
Documenso provides an electronic signature platform that allows users to create, send, and sign documents with enterprise-grade compliance built in.
Enterprise SoftwareLegalTechSaaSSan Francisco, US
Lucas Smith(Executive Officer, Director)inTimur Ercan(Executive Officer, Director)in
Extropic builds thermodynamic computing hardware designed to be significantly more energy efficient than GPUs for probabilistic AI workloads.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechHardware
Guillaume Verdon(Founder)in
Co-investorsHOF CapitalJulian CapitalValor Equity Partners
Extropic builds thermodynamic computing hardware, including thermodynamic sampling units (TSUs) designed to be more energy efficient than GPUs for probabilistic AI workloads.
Deep TechHardwareSemiconductorsAustin, US
Guillaume Verdon(Founder)in
Co-investorsAtacama VenturesBeyond CapitalBlack FlagHOF CapitalHyperguapJulian Capital+6 more
Forem is open source software for building online communities in any niche, powering DEV, a community where software developers share knowledge and collaborate.
Creator EconomyDeveloper ToolsMedia & EntertainmentSocial
Ben Halpern(Co-founder)Jess Lee(Co-founder)Peter Frank(Co-founder)
Co-investorsEverywhere VenturesTrousdale Ventures
Umbrel makes umbrelOS, a home server operating system with a one-click app store for self-hosting applications such as file/photo storage (Nextcloud), media streaming (Plex), Bitcoin and Lightning nodes, local AI models (Ollama, DeepSeek, Llama), home automation, and network ad-blocking.
ConsumerCrypto & Web3Hardware
NocoDB is a no-code platform that turns databases into a spreadsheet-like interface, letting users build database applications without writing code.
Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaSPoole
Naveen R(Founder)inNaveen Rudrappa(Executive Officer, Director)
Co-investorsDecibel PartnersTogether FundUncorrelated Ventures
North provides cloud cost management software that helps organizations optimize their cloud spending and licensing across public cloud providers.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSNew York City, US
Yassine Açoine(Founder)in
Co-investorsAlpaca VCCompanyon VenturesCorigin VenturesDragonXExpert DOJOIneffable Ventures+2 more
Parallel operates AI-driven simulation games and extraction shooter games set in the Parallel Universe.
AI & Machine LearningGaming
Parag Agrawal(Founder & CEO)
Co-investorsBig Brain HoldingsCoinbase VenturesCollab+CurrencyParadigmWWVentures
Plane is a payroll and HR platform designed for automation-first teams, offering open APIs, CLI, and MCP integrations so agents and software tools can directly manage payroll operations.
Enterprise SoftwareFintechFuture of WorkHR TechSaaSSan Francisco, US
Co-investorsY CombinatorB CapitalTrucks VC
Plane provides a project management platform with dedicated teamspaces that allow groups of coworkers to organize projects, track work assignments, and manage team-specific metrics and knowledge separately from organization-wide views.
Developer ToolsEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkSaaS
Vamsi Kurama(Founder)in
Co-investorsSherpalo Ventures
Remix is a full-stack JavaScript web framework that provides server, router, data layer, UI components, and testing capabilities for building web applications.
Developer Tools
Co-investorsEnergy Impact PartnersSequoia Capital
ResearchHub is a platform that connects researchers, funders, and the public to facilitate open science through transparent peer review, public preregistration, and decentralized funding mechanisms.
AI & Machine LearningBiotechCrypto & Web3EdTechSaaS
Co-investorsSora Ventures
RustDesk is an open-source remote desktop software that provides free remote access as an alternative to commercial solutions.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSingapore, SG
BoardJoseph Jacks(CEO)in
Tracel develops compiler tools and collaborative platforms to make AI model development more efficient and portable across different hardware platforms, addressing fragmentation in the AI ecosystem.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeep TechDeveloper Tools
Nathaniel Simard(Chief Executive Officer (CEO))inLouis Fortier-Dubois(Chief Computing Officer (CCO))in
Co-investorsAviso VenturesBoxOne Ventures
Umbrel makes umbrelOS, a home server operating system with a one-click app store for self-hosting apps such as personal cloud storage, media streaming, Bitcoin/Lightning nodes, network ad-blocking, home automation, and locally-run AI models and agents.
ConsumerCrypto & Web3Hardware
Co-investorsFulgur VenturesVersion One Ventures
W4 Games provides enterprise professional services, platform ports, XR support, and premium support for teams using the open-source Godot game engine in production.
Developer ToolsEnterprise SoftwareGamingDublin 12 Ireland
Remi Verschelde(Director)inNicola Farronato(Executive Officer, Director)inFabio Alessandrelli(Director)inJuan Linietsky(Executive Officer, Director)inDarin Bifani(Executive Officer)inPaul Haycock(Executive Officer)
Co-investorsLux CapitalSisu Game VenturesTencent Holdings
Wasmer makes software universally available, providing solutions that enable developers and companies to maximize their potential through its platform and tools.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSector AgnosticSan Francisco, US
Syrus Akbary(Founder)in
Co-investorsY CombinatorZero Prime Ventures468 Capital
Other
Tracked investments with no reachable website or further public details — typically companies that wound down, renamed, or were absorbed.
Cal ComHoppscotch
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companies
W4 Games · pocketgamer.biz · Sep 2, 2026
North · calgary.tech · Aug 21, 2026
Research Hub · anysilicon.com · Aug 20, 2026
Extropic · interestingengineering.com · Aug 3, 2026
Extropic · interestingengineering.com · Aug 3, 2026
Aleph Alpha · tectonicdefense.com · Jul 17, 2026
DataStax · fortuneindia.com · Jul 17, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has OSS Capital made?
- OSS Capital has 34 tracked investments, 1 of which have exited, including 1 dated in the last 24 months.
- What stage does OSS Capital invest at?
- OSS Capital invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
- What is OSS Capital's typical check size?
- OSS Capital typically writes checks of $50K – $5M.
- What sectors does OSS Capital focus on?
- OSS Capital focuses on Cloud Computing, Data & Infrastructure, Developer Tools, Enterprise Software, SaaS, Sector Agnostic.
- Where is OSS Capital located?
- OSS Capital is headquartered in San Francisco, US.
- Does OSS Capital lead rounds?
- Yes, OSS Capital leads investment rounds.
- Who does OSS Capital co-invest with?
- OSS Capital most often shares deals with Y Combinator, Zero Prime Ventures, Amplify Partners, among 23 tracked co-investors.
Media · Podcasts & interviews
featuring the teamJoseph Jacks (OSS Capital) on the monetization of open source (EP.47)
On The Brink with Castle Island · Joseph Jacks
Joseph Jacks: OSS Capital, Intelligence, Open Source, COSS, Venture Investing | Ventura Labs Ep. 14
Ventura Labs · Joseph Jacks
Open Source VC Funding: Insider View from Joseph Jacks (OSS Capital) - Hacking Open Source Business
The Hacking Open Source Business Podcast · Joseph Jacks
The Stack Overflow Podcast: Heather Meeker, OSS Capital
Stack Overflow · Heather Meeker
E09 - Joseph Jacks, Founder of COSS Capital & one of the most well-known investors in open source
OpenTeams · Joseph Jacks
E02 How open source software is eating software with Joseph Jacks from OSS Capital
Sand Hill Road · Joseph Jacks
Images
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