Skip to content
The Bit Foundation

Early-stage venture · San Francisco · Since 2016

We back founders before the market agrees.

First checks at pre-seed and seed, roughly twelve a year. Small enough that every company gets a partner who knows the details, patient enough to sit through the years when nothing looks like progress.

Pitch your startupHow we invest

Recently backed

All 180 companies
An angular glass office building seen from street level
First check written
2016

Two partners, one fund, a lot of conviction

Companies backed
180

Roughly twelve a year, on purpose

Combined portfolio value
$4.8B

Marked at last priced round

Countries
41

We have never required relocation

What we are looking for

Four places we spend most of our time

We are generalists by charter and specific in practice. These are the areas where we have done the work, made the mistakes, and can be useful on day one.

Read the full thesis
  • 01

    Software that does the work

    Models became useful faster than companies became ready. The interesting businesses now are the ones absorbing real workflows, not the ones adding a chat box to an old product.

  • 02

    Infrastructure under the boom

    Every platform shift makes a handful of boring, essential companies. Evaluation, data movement, permissioning, cost control. We look for the layer everyone will need and nobody wants to build.

  • 03

    The industries nobody demos

    Logistics, insurance, clinical operations, energy markets. Slow to sell into, hard to displace, enormous once you are in. These take a decade, which is the point.

  • 04

    Founders with an unfair reason

    The best pitch we hear is usually a small, specific thing the founder knows that we do not. Domain scar tissue beats a polished narrative every time.

Portfolio

180 companies, and counting

Most of them we met before anyone else was paying attention. A few are listed here.

Explore the portfolio

After the wire

The money is the easy part.

Every firm says it is helpful. What that means in practice is narrower and more boring than it sounds, so here is the actual list.

  • Recruiting

    The first ten hires decide the company. We keep a live bench of operators and run your search alongside you rather than sending a list.

  • Customers

    Introductions to buyers who have budget and a reason to answer, made by the partner who knows them. We do not spray your deck across a network.

  • The next round

    We build the story, pressure-test the numbers, and tell you honestly when the round is not ready. That last part saves companies.

  • The quiet months

    Most of the work happens when nothing is being announced. A call on a Sunday about a co-founder problem is the job, not a favor.

From founders

What they say when we are not in the room

“They told us to kill two of our three products in the first month. It was the correct call and nobody else was willing to say it out loud.”
Elena VasquezCo-founder and CEO, Nimbus AI
“Our lead investor for the Series A came from a single introduction, but the more useful thing was the two months of honest feedback before we went out.”
James ParkFounder, Ledgerly
“I called on a Sunday about a co-founder situation. Somebody picked up, and then stayed on the phone for an hour.”
Aisha MohammedCEO, Helix Bio

Accelerator · Summer 2026

Twelve weeks, sixteen companies, one partner in the room.

$500K on a post-money SAFE, 7% target. No curriculum, no guest speakers, no demo day theatre. Applications for Summer 2026 close March 15, 2026.

Apply to the acceleratorSee how it works
Investment
$500K
Ownership
7%
Cohort
16
Weeks
12

Insights

What we are thinking about

All writing

Tell us what you are building

One partner reads every application. You will hear back either way, usually within a week.

Pitch your startupTalk to us first