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.

Where is OSS Capital located?

OSS Capital is headquartered in San Francisco, US.

Does OSS Capital lead rounds?

Yes, OSS Capital leads investment rounds.

OSS Capital

Venture capitalActively deploying

San Francisco · Pre-Seed–Series A · 6 people tracked

Also known as OSS CAPITAL, LLC

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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.

Invests inCloud Computing Data & Infrastructure Developer Tools Enterprise Software SaaS Sector AgnosticGlobalSan Francisco

Source: firm website, verified Aug 3, 2026.

Stage

Pre-Seed–Series A

Check

$50K – $5M

San Francisco, California, US

Leads rounds

Leads

Instruments

Equity

Founded

2018

AUM

$200M

VC funds

Tracked investments

Team · 6 people

from the firm's website

Joseph Jacks· Founder and General Partner· United Statesin 𝕏

Joseph Jacks, who coined the COSS category, focuses exclusively on startups with an essential open-source core and has LPs composed of founders from WordPress, Red Hat, MongoDB and GitHub.

j•••@oss.capitalreveal

Heather Meeker· Founding Portfolio Partner· San Francisco Bay Areain

Heather Meeker is an expert in software licensing with over 20 years of experience advising businesses on the use of open source software, having helped many emerging companies with licensing and business models. As a lawyer in private practice, she advised clients ranging from startups to large enterprises on software licenses and copyright, and she wrote the book "Open Source for Business." Before practicing law, she worked as a programmer of business applications and systems and as a professional musician.

Justin Hoffman· Portfolio Partner: GTM/Sales· Diablo, California, United Statesin

Justin Hoffman is an advisor with more than 20 years of experience in technology. He currently advises on go-to-market strategy while focusing on family and philanthropic pursuits.

Scott Williamson· Portfolio Partner: Product· Boulder, Colorado, United Statesin

Scott Williamson is a product advisor working with B2B software and AI companies on product strategy, pricing, and scaling product teams. Previously, he served as Chief Product Officer at GitLab, where he scaled the company to $300M+ ARR and led it through an IPO, and as VP Product at SendGrid prior to its IPO and acquisition by Twilio. He advises venture and PE-backed companies across DevSecOps, AI, and vertical SaaS on areas including customer profiling, pricing and monetization, product development processes, and team building.

Chelsea Wei· Chief Financial Officer (CFO)· London, England, United Kingdomin

Chelsea Wei is the CFO of OSS Capital. She previously worked as Financial Controller at Felix Capital, Fund Controller at Frazier Healthcare Partners, and an Auditor at PwC, and held fund accounting leadership roles at Freestone Capital Management and UMB Bank. She is a CPA who has passed Level I of the CFA program and holds a BS in Accounting from Utah State University.

Kevin Wang· Strategic Advisor· New York, New York, United Statesin

Kevin Wang is a Strategic Advisor at OSS Capital, where he works with founders of open source projects on commercialization and scaling. He is the CEO of FOSSA, a platform for open source license and vulnerability management used by large enterprises and popular open source projects. He was named to the Forbes "30 Under 30" list in 2018 and was a 2013 Thiel Fellow.

What they invest in

from 25 of 34 portfolio companies

AI & Machine Learning ×12Developer Tools ×9SaaS ×9Enterprise Software ×8Data & Infrastructure ×7Cloud Computing ×4Deep Tech ×4Fintech ×3

HQs:United States×6Canada×1Germany×1

Investments · 34 tracked

founders shown can be your intro path

Liquid AIliquid.aiin 𝕏

Liquid.ai develops foundation models optimized to run on edge devices such as phones, laptops, and cars, prioritizing low latency and privacy constraints.

AI & Machine LearningDeep TechBrookline, US

Louis Hunt(Executive Officer)Daniela Rus(Director)Stephen Pagliuca(Director)Mathias Lechner(Director, Executive Officer)Joseph Jacks(Director)Ramin Hasani(Executive Officer, Director)

Board seatJoseph Jacks· per SEC Form D

Acquirednorth.cloudin

North provides cloud cost management software that helps organizations optimize their cloud spending and licensing across public cloud providers.

AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaS

Aitomaticaitomatic.comin 𝕏

Aitomatic builds DanaOS, an on-premise "Engineering Intelligence" platform that captures experts' tacit operational knowledge as a governed "Cognitive Ontology" and runs it as autonomous agents that perceive, diagnose, and act on industrial systems.

Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningSemiconductors

Aleph Alphaaleph-alpha.comin 𝕏

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)Ilhan Scheer(Co-Chief Executive Officer)Reto Spörri(Co-Chief Executive Officer)

AppFlowyappflowy.io𝕏

AppFlowy is an open-source workspace application that combines database and note-taking capabilities with integrated AI features for content generation, writing assistance, and task management.

AI & Machine LearningFuture of WorkSaaS

Bittensor

Bittensor Privatebittensor.com𝕏

Bittensor is an open network protocol where independent subnets produce digital commodities and machine intelligence services, with participants rewarded in TAO tokens.

AI & Machine LearningCrypto & Web3Data & Infrastructure

Boxyhqboxyhq.comin 𝕏

London

Carlos Enrique Samame Galdos(Executive Officer, Director)Deepak Prabhakara(Executive Officer, Director)

Cal Com

CrabNebulacrabnebula.devin 𝕏

CrabNebula provides cloud infrastructure for building, deploying, and distributing native and hybrid applications across multiple frameworks.

Cloud ComputingDeveloper Tools

Dagsterdagster.ioin 𝕏

Dagster Labs develops Dagster, an open-source data orchestration platform with a commercial cloud offering.

AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSan Francisco, US

DataStaxdatastax.com

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

Documensodocumenso.com𝕏

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)Timur Ercan(Executive Officer, Director)

Extropicextropic.com

Extropic builds thermodynamic computing hardware designed to be significantly more energy efficient than GPUs for probabilistic AI workloads.

AI & Machine LearningDeep TechHardware

Foremforem.com𝕏

Forem is an online community platform where software developers share posts, keep up with technology news, and grow their careers.

Developer ToolsMedia & EntertainmentSocial

Formbricksformbricks.comin

Formbricks is an open-source Experience Management suite for gathering customer feedback through surveys on websites, apps, and emails.

Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaS

Peer Richelsen(Co-founder)

Getumbrelgetumbrel.com𝕏

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

Hoppscotchhoppscotch.io

Mericomerico.dev

Merico offers DevInsight, an engineering analytics tool that measures software delivery performance using metrics such as DORA and PR cycle time to help teams ship software faster.

Data & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaS

NocoDBnocodb.com𝕏

Poole

Naveen Rudrappa(Executive Officer, Director)

Northbynorth.comin 𝕏

Thalmic Labs manufactures wearable armbands that detect electrical muscle signals to enable wireless control of computers and mobile devices.

ConsumerHardwareKitchener, CA

Stephen Lake(Founder/CEO)inMatthew Bailey(Founder)Aaron Grant(Founder)

OpenBBopenbb.coin 𝕏

OpenBB provides an open-source financial workspace platform for investment teams to integrate data from multiple sources, build interactive dashboards, and run AI agents on governed data within their own infrastructure.

AI & Machine LearningFintechSaaS

Parallel

Parallel Privateparallel.life𝕏

Parallel operates AI-driven simulation games and extraction shooter games set in the Parallel Universe.

AI & Machine LearningGaming

Parlons de votre projetcal.com

Planeplane.comin 𝕏

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

Matt Pelc(Founder/CEO)in

Planeplane.soin 𝕏

Plane is a project and knowledge management platform that combines projects, wikis, AI-powered workflows, and customer support into a single workspace for teams and AI agents.

Developer ToolsFuture of WorkSaaS

Remixremix.run𝕏

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

Research Hubresearchhub.comin 𝕏

RustDeskrustdesk.com𝕏

RustDesk provides remote desktop access software with NAT traversal, modern codecs, and built-in encryption for teams.

Enterprise SoftwareSaaS

Traceltracel.aiin 𝕏

Tracel offers a full-stack AI solution that supports model development and AI infrastructure from research through production, automating repetitive parts of the workflow to reduce operational cost.

AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeep Tech

Umbrel

W4 Gamesw4games.com

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 SoftwareGaming

Wasmerwasmer.ioin 𝕏

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

Frequently asked questions

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.

Media · Podcasts & interviews

featuring the team

Joseph 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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