Fundraising FoxNew York · Pre-Seed–Seed · 32 people tracked
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Investment thesis
Z Fellows runs a one-week program bringing together ten early-stage technical builders with founders of billion-dollar companies for intensive mentorship. It targets ambitious people early in their journey — high school dropouts, college students, and people with full-time jobs — across many industries. Participation can be free, or founders can opt to take a $10,000 investment at a $1B valuation cap that converts at the next priced round. Cohorts run multiple times per year, mostly virtual with an in-person final day in SF or NYC, and the program continues to support participants for the life of their company.
Source: firm website, verified Sep 26, 2026.
Team · 32 people
from the firm's website & public directories
Founder mafia
The Z-Fellows mafia →52 people who came through Z-Fellows went on to found or lead other companies.
What they invest in
from 17 of 23 portfolio companiesAI & Machine Learning ×14Enterprise Software ×6Developer Tools ×5Fintech ×4SaaS ×4Data & Infrastructure ×3Consumer ×2Healthtech ×2
HQs:United States×11United Kingdom×1
Who they back
founder profiles across 13 portfolio companiesFounding team size:2 founders×53 founders×44+ founders×4
Where their founders studiedfrom 32 founders with education data
Harvard University ×9Z-Fellows ×7Massachusetts Institute of Technology ×6Technical University of Munich ×3Columbia University ×2Georgia Institute of Technology ×2University of Toronto ×2
What their founders studiedfrom 27 founders with field-of-study data
Computer Science ×20Mathematics & Statistics ×4Engineering ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 36 founders with career history
Google ×6Stanford University ×4Tesla ×3Duolingo ×2Massachusetts Institute of Technology ×2Stripe ×2Varfaj Partners ×2
Accelerator rootsportfolio companies that came through a program
5 founders hold a PhD (of 33 with degree data)
Portfolio companies · 23 tracked
alumni founders can tell you what the program is really like
Amorphous transforms unstructured hospital data into standardized, queryable formats using AI, enabling hospitals to derive operational, financial, and clinical insights for decision-making.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureHealthtech
Co-investorsBADideas.fundOutlast FundPurposeTechSpecialist VC
Terac operates an "expert labor MCP" — an API and marketplace that lets AI systems and companies source, screen, interview, verify, and pay verified human experts on demand, using a panel of experts and an AI moderator that runs structured voice interviews.
AI & Machine LearningFuture of WorkMarketplacesSan Francisco, US
Zac(Co-founder)Jack(Co-founder)
Co-investorsAudaciousSignalFireSV AngelAntigravity CapitalNew Era Ventures ApS
Aaru builds a simulation platform that models how populations of people would behave in response to changes such as new product concepts, pricing, or features, positioning itself as an alternative to surveys and traditional market research.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureMarketing TechNew York, US
John Kessler(Founder)inCameron Fink(Founder)inNed Koh(Founder)in
BoardLogan Bartlett(Director)in
Co-investorsAbstract VenturesFelicis VenturesFirestreak VenturesGeneral CatalystK5 GlobalLink Ventures+4 more
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Avoca provides an operational intelligence and automation layer for radiology clinic networks, handling patient calls, referrals, and bookings across channels 24/7 and integrating with existing RIS systems.
AI & Machine LearningDigital HealthHealthtechSan Francisco, US
Campbell Mercer-Butcher(CTO)inMax Shand(CEO)in
Co-investorsY CombinatorZero IndexBlast.ClubLyra Capital Pty LtdRebel FundRobinhood
Bland is an enterprise voice AI platform for building, running, and monitoring AI phone agents that handle inbound and outbound calls, replacing IVRs and staffing AI call centers.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSaaSSan Francisco, US
Sobhan Nejad(Founder)inIsaiah Granet(Founder)inIsaiah Granet Sobhan Nejad(Founder)Noah Kravitz(CBO)Mahmoud Serewel(Head of special projects)
Co-investorsAlumni VenturesAnsa CapitalBVP InvestorsCameron VenturesCoho DeeptechConverge+13 more
Cal AI is a mobile calorie-tracking app that lets users photograph meals so its AI, using the phone's depth sensor to estimate food volume, calculates calories, protein, carbs, and fat.
AI & Machine LearningConsumerWellness & Fitness
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzBessemer Venture PartnersIndex Ventures
Cognition develops Devin, an autonomous AI software engineer agent that plans, writes, tests, and deploys production code within existing development environments to augment human engineering teams.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Scott Wu(Founder)inWalden Yan(Founder)inSteven Hao(Founder)in
Co-investors137 Ventures20VC8VCAbstract VenturesAlpha Wave GlobalAndreessen Horowitz+30 more
Cursor is a code editor that enables teams to manage and distribute Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and integrations through team marketplaces, with features for organization-level access control and cloud agent integration.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsSaaS
Sualeh Asif(Founder)Arvid Lunnemark(Founder)inAman Sanger(Founder)inMicheal Truell(Cofounder)Michael Truell(Founder)in
Co-investorsAccelAndreessen HorowitzAviso VenturesBoxGroupC3 VenturesCai Leung Leung Partners+20 more
Etched designs custom inference chips, racks, and software co-designed for running frontier AI models, including large sparse mixture-of-experts models, long-context, and agentic workloads.
AI & Machine LearningHardwareSemiconductorsSan Jose, US
Gavin Uberti(Founder)inRobert Wachen(Founder)Chris Zhu(Founder)inMark Ross(CTO)inBrian Loiler(VP of Platform)inWayne Cao(VP of Production)in
Co-investorsThiel CapitalAntiAZURO CAPITAL VENTURESBain Capital VenturesBeyond CapitalConversion Capital+29 more
Greptile provides AI agents that review and test pull requests by constructing a graph index of the codebase and using a swarm of agents to detect code quality issues, security risks, and logical bugs across multiple files.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Daksh Gupta(Founder)inSoohoon Choi(Founder)inVaishant Kameswaran(Founder)inVaishant Kameshwaran(Founder)Christine Han(Talent)Paloma Prudhomme(Operations Lead)
Co-investorsInitialized CapitalY CombinatorBenchmarkBrowder CapitalCory LevyCyberlaunch+5 more
Listen Labs offers an AI-moderated video interview platform that recruits and interviews verified customers in parallel, then synthesizes the findings into memos, slides, and highlight reels.
AI & Machine LearningFintechMarketing TechSaaSSan Francisco, US
Alfred Wahlforss(Founder)inFlorian Juengermann(Founder)in
Co-investorsavraConvictionFlorent Venture PartnersSequoia CapitalTCP CapitalMenlo Ventures+2 more
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Alumni company (Ethan Thornton), valued at $1.8B per the page.
Co-investorsA*Chapter OneBedrock CapitalInfinite CapitalRibbit CapitalSequoia Capital
Mintlify provides self-updating documentation and knowledge infrastructure for startups, enterprises, and AI agents.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Han Wang(Founder)inHahnbee Lee(Founder)inBrandon Waselnuk(Head of Product)inJennifer Clerici(Recruiter)Michael Trimarco(Head of Recruiting)Drew Venerable(Recruiter)
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzavraBain Capital VenturesBright Pixel CapitalHubSpot VenturesMVP Ventures+5 more
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) with emphasis on safety and beneficial outcomes for humanity.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Sam Altman(Founder)inElon Musk(Founder)inGreg Brockman(Founder)inIlya Sutskever(Founder)inWojciech Zaremba(Founder)inJohn Schulman(Founder)
Co-investors7BC Venture CapitalA-Rod CorpA.Capital VenturesA'Z AngelsAdvent InternationalAliya Capital Partners+98 more
Posh provides secure, explainable AI solutions for IT teams at financial institutions through voice, chat, and knowledge platforms governed by a single control interface.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaS
Co-investorsCanapi VenturesCurql Collective, LLCFINTOP CapitalHuman CapitalNext Level VenturesREMUS Capital+1 more
Pure Pet Food makes natural, air-dried dog food using a moisture-removal preservation method instead of the extrusion process used for traditional dry biscuits, offering tailored recipes based on each dog's profile delivered directly to owners.
ConsumerDirect to ConsumerE-commerceFoodTech
Daniel Valdur Eha(Founder)inDan
Co-investorsFELIX CAPITALGoodwater CapitalHidden CapitalLudlow VenturesMaC Venture CapitalSignalFire
Pure is a platform for hosting private poker games with friends, providing social features, player verification, payment management, and compliance tools.
FintechGamingSocial
Jacob Bulbulia(Co-Founder)inHarold Castiaux(Co-founder)in
Co-investorsLudlow VenturesMaC Venture Capital
Swsh is a fan-engagement platform that began as a shared photo-album app for college social life and pivoted to helping artists, brands, and event organizers capture and analyze fan-generated photos/videos from live events.
Co-investorsGame Changers VenturesMaC Venture CapitalCanaryIA VenturesNotable CapitalNZVC+3 more
Interaction is building Poke.com.
Sector Agnostic
Marvin von Hagen(Founder)inFelix M. Schlegel(Founder)in
Co-investorsEarlybird Venture CapitalGeneral CatalystBek VenturesCory LevyFred EhrsamGeneral Atlantic+5 more
Whop provides APIs and embedded components for developers to integrate checkout and payment functionality into their applications without building complex infrastructure from scratch.
Developer ToolsFintechNew York, US
Steven Schwartz(Founder)inJack Sharkey(Founder)inCameron Zoub(Founder)inAndrew Mudd(Founder)in
Co-investorsA*Bain Capital VenturesMantis CapitalMotley Fool VenturesSignalFireSoma Capital+10 more
Other
Tracked investments with no reachable website or further public details — typically companies that wound down, renamed, or were absorbed.
General CyberneticsNucleusOrbit Engineering
Exits · 2
2 acquisitions · showing 1Cursoracq. by SpaceX
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companies
Etched · techcrunch.com · Oct 5, 2026
OpenAI · openai.com · Jul 21, 2026
Bland AI · bland.ai · Jun 16, 2026
Cognition AI · finsmes.com · May 28, 2026
Mintlify · finsmes.com · Apr 17, 2026
Listen Labs · finance.yahoo.com · Jan 14, 2026
Aaru · thesaasnews.com · Dec 8, 2025
Cursor · finsmes.com · Nov 14, 2025
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has Z-Fellows made?
- Z-Fellows has 23 tracked investments, 2 of which have exited.
- What stage does Z-Fellows invest at?
- Z-Fellows invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed stages.
- What is Z-Fellows's typical check size?
- Z-Fellows typically writes checks of $10K.
- What sectors does Z-Fellows focus on?
- Z-Fellows focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Biotech, Climate Tech, Cloud Computing, Consumer, Crypto & Web3, Cybersecurity, Defense Tech, EdTech, Enterprise Software, Fintech, Gaming, Healthtech, Sector Agnostic, Social.
- Where is Z-Fellows located?
- Z-Fellows is headquartered in New York, US.
- Does Z-Fellows lead rounds?
- Z-Fellows typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.
- Who does Z-Fellows co-invest with?
- Z-Fellows most often shares deals with Y Combinator, Bain Capital Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, among 117 tracked co-investors.
Images
Co-investors · 1
Sequoia Capital is a venture capital firm that partners with founders to build technology companies.
Firms observed investing alongside Z-Fellows, from public investor directories. Shared companies are the overlap with Z-Fellows's recorded portfolio.
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