Baseline Ventures

This venture capital firm invests in early-stage companies with funding gaps, providing support to help them bridge the gap between individual and institutio...

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Updated: Jan 22, 2026 ·

About

Founded in 2006 by Steve Anderson, Baseline Ventures targets early-stage companies who need help with the funding gap between inividual investors and institutional venture capital. Baseline has invested in more than 60 companies, and has helped more than 20 companies exit, including Heroku (acquired by Saleforce.com), CoTweet (acquired by ExactTarget), GeoAPI (acquired by Twitter), IndexTank (acquired by LinkedIn), and Rupture (aquired by EA).

Financial History

Total Raised

N/A

Valuation

N/A

Investments Made

Date	Company	Round	Lead Investor(s)	Co-Investor(s)
May 1, 2025	Theo Ai	$4.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Beat Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Collide Capital, Founder Collective, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Akash Garg, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Sahin Boydas, Scott Belsky, Wayne Chang
Apr 1, 2025	ValueMate	$500K Seed	—	BrightCap Ventures, Brighton Park Capital, Fathom Capital, Jacob Conger, S28 Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures
Mar 1, 2025	Trellis Air	$7.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Founder Collective, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Nov 1, 2024	Theo Ai	$2.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Beat Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Collide Capital, Founder Collective, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Akash Garg, Cory Levy, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Sahin Boydas, Scott Belsky, Wayne Chang
Oct 1, 2024	Zip	$190.0M Series D	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, AirAngels, Angelic Ventures, Arrive, Bond, Boston Seed Capital, CapitalG, Cedar Capital Group, Chemistry VC, Comal Ventures, CRV, Impellent Ventures, Innovation Endeavors, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Northside Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, Principia Growth Equity, The Hit Forge, Trajectory Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Tribeca Venture Partners, Vendep Capital, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Balaji Srinivasan, David Chang, Derrick Li, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Mar 1, 2024	The New Club	$3.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, 20VC, Accomplice VC, Afore Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Antiportfolio Ventures, Arrive, Better Capital, Boston Seed Capital, C2 Investment, Caffeinated Capital, Clocktower Technology Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners, GSV Acceleration, Heretic Ventures, Impellent Ventures, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Manresa Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Overlooked Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Predictive VC, Right Side Capital Management, SciFi VC, Seven Seven Six, Stone Mountain Ventures, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Weekend Fund, WorkLife Ventures, Y Combinator, Anthony Pompliano, Baron Davis, David Chang, Evan Moore, Fidji Simo, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Jeremy Yap, John Collison, Kevin Lin, Kunal Shah, Mike Krieger, Scott Belsky, Steve Chen
Mar 1, 2024	Kidsy	$1.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, 2048 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Boston Seed Capital, Jenny Fielding, Scott Hartley, Everywhere Ventures (The Fund), Founder Collective, gener8tor, Goat Capital, Impellent Ventures, LifeX Ventures, Menlo Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Trucks Venture Capital, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Volition Capital, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jason Robins, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky, Travis May, Wayne Chang
Feb 1, 2024	Evergrowth	$3.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Dec 1, 2023	Excarta	$3.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Founder Collective, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky, Wayne Chang
Dec 1, 2023	Extropic AI	$14.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, 7BC Venture Capital, Accomplice VC, Alchemy Ventures, Alt Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Arrive, Audrey Capital, Bain Capital, Baird Capital, Bold Capital Partners, Boston Seed Capital, CRV, E1 Ventures, FirstHand Alliance, foobar.vc, Founder Collective, General Catalyst, Global Founders Capital, Goat Capital, Gradient Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, Grotech Ventures, Haun Ventures, Christian Miele, HOF Capital, Impellent Ventures, Index Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Initialized Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Jude Gomila Rolling Fund, Kima Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, monashees, Motier Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Polychain Capital, Predictive VC, Preston-Werner Ventures, Quassar Capital, Safar Partners, Saga, Samsung NEXT Ventures, Sarona Ventures, Sequoia Capital, The Hit Forge, Union Square Ventures, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Ameet Patel, Amit Agarwal, Amjad Masad, Anjney Midha, Arash Ferdowsi, Balaji Srinivasan, Bob Young, Bradley Horowitz, David Chang, Drew Houston, Eric Wu, Guy Podjarny, Immad Akhund, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Lukas Biewald, Mathilde Collin, Sam Altman, Scott Belsky, Stanley Tang, Tim Griffin, Tobias Lutke, Vivek Patel, William Hockey
Nov 1, 2023	LucidLink	$75.0M Series C	—	BrightCap Ventures, Brighton Park Capital, Fathom Capital, Jacob Conger, Indeed.com, OMERS Ventures, S28 Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures
Nov 1, 2023	Anon	$5.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Kevin Hartz, Accomplice VC, AirAngels, Altimeter Capital, Alumni Ventures, Arrive, Avalanche VC, Benchmark, Blockchain Capital, Boston Seed Capital, C2 Investment, Energy Revolution Ventures, FirstHand Alliance, Greylock, Haun Ventures, Impellent Ventures, Initialized Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Liquid 2 Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, NFX, Operator Collective, Otherwise Fund, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Tiger Global Management, Uncork Capital, Union Square Ventures, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Weekend Fund, Y Combinator, Akshay Kothari, Arash Ferdowsi, Bob Young, David Chang, Gokul Rajaram, Jeff Hammerbacher, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Kanjun Qiu, Paul Yacoubian, Scott Belsky, Siqi Chen, Stanley Druckenmiller, Suhail Doshi
Oct 1, 2023	ViaBot	$5.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, BDC Venture Capital, Boston Seed Capital, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, SOSV, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Aug 1, 2023	Grit	$7.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, 8VC, 9Yards Capital, Abstract Ventures, Accomplice VC, Alumni Ventures, Anti fund, Arrive, Bam Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Betaworks Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Founder Collective, Founders Fund, Friends & Family Capital, General Catalyst, Haystack, Kamran Ansari, Impellent Ventures, Insight Partners, Khosla Ventures, Multicoin Capital, NextGen Venture Partners, Next Play Capital, NextView Ventures, OMERS Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sherpalo Ventures, SRB Ventures, The Hit Forge, Ulu Ventures, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Konstantin von Unger, Matteo Franceschetti, Max Mullen, Ron Pragides, Ryan Holiday, Scott Banister, Siqi Chen, Sri Batchu, Wayne Chang, Zander Lurie, Guillermo Rauch
Jul 1, 2023	Zelt	$3.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Adapt Ventures, Alpine Ventures, Angels of Many, Arrive, Atomico, Banana Capital, Boston Seed Capital, Concept Ventures, Episode 1 Ventures, Founder Collective, Goodwater Capital, Impellent Ventures, Iris Capital, Nauta Capital, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Playfair Capital, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, XX, Y Combinator, Arash Ferdowsi, Charlie Songhurst, Chris Schagen, Christian Reber, David Chang, Evan Moore, Immad Akhund, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Mandeep Singh, Niklas Jansen, Scott Belsky
Jul 1, 2023	Nomic AI	$17.0M Series A	—	186 Ventures, 20VC, Accomplice VC, Air Street Capital, Alumni Ventures, Arrive, Bain Capital Ventures, Boston Seed Capital, Conviction Partners, Greycroft, Impellent Ventures, Invariantes Fund, K2 Global, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, Spark Capital, The Hit Forge, Trajectory Ventures, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Walden International, Y Combinator, Adam D'Angelo, David Chang, Georges Harik, Greg Brockman, Jeff Hammerbacher, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Sahin Boydas, Scott Belsky, Thomas Tull
Jul 1, 2023	Ambient	$7.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Jun 1, 2023	Invalidate	$4.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, ALLVP, Arrive, Berkeley Angel Network, Boston Seed Capital, Canaan Partners, Cortical Ventures, Curious Capital, DGF Investimentos, Jenny Fielding, Firework Ventures, Founder Collective, Homebrew, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, Root Ventures, Rumbo Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, The Hit Forge, The Hive, Rick Lewis, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Mo El-Bibany, Pierpaolo Barbieri, Scott Belsky, Wayne Chang
Jun 1, 2023	Infringements	$4.0M Seed	—	01 Advisors, 186 Ventures, 20VC, Accomplice VC, Adverb Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Chloe Sladden, Jana Messerschmidt, Arrive, Bain Capital Ventures, Bam Ventures, B Capital Group, Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, Better Tomorrow Ventures, Blackbird Ventures Australia, Boston Seed Capital, C2 Investment, Conversion Capital, Daffy, Endure Capital, Fifth Wall, Founder Collective, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Goat Capital, Impellent Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Moxxie Ventures, New North Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Polaris Partners, Predictive VC, QED Investors, Ravelin Capital, SOSV, Techstars, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Will Ventures, Y Combinator, Aaron Levie, Adrian Aoun, David Cancel, David Chang, Elad Gil, Eric Wu, Jason Robins, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Joshua Reeves, Kevin Weil, Merlin Kauffman, Ric Fulop, Scott Belsky, Wayne Chang, Zak Kukoff
Jun 1, 2023	1Fort AI	$2.0M Seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
Jun 1, 2023	Rose Rocket	$38.0M Series B	—	Berkeley Angel Network, Canaan Partners, Root Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Shine Capital, Social Capital, Tet Ventures
Jun 1, 2023	Patented.ai	$5.0M Seed	—	10100, 186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Amino Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Arrive, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Boston Seed Capital, BoxOne Ventures, Browder Capital, Cloud Apps Capital Partners, Company Capital, Cota Capital, Craft Ventures, DCM, Dig Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Founder Collective, Gecad Ventures, General Catalyst, Global Founders Capital, HDC Ventures, Impellent Ventures, Jackson Square Ventures, January Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, MBX Capital, New North Ventures, Next47, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, NFX, One Way Ventures, Operator Collective, Pear VC, Plug & Play Ventures, Predictive VC, Redpoint Ventures, S28 Capital, Saga, SignalFire, Slack Fund, SNR, The Hit Forge, Third Point Ventures, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Tribe Capital, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Aaron Rosenson, Allison Pickens (Allison Pickens Ventures), Anne Wojcicki, David Chang, Ed Baker, Gokul Rajaram, Javier Olivan, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Joshua Webster, Madhu Chamarty, Mattia Astori, Matt Mazzeo, Paul Graham, Peter Kazanjy, Sathvik Bilakanti, Scott Belsky, Sue Xu, Vinay Hiremath, Wayne Chang
Jun 1, 2023	Tomorrow.io	$87.0M Series E	—	Berkeley Angel Network, Canaan Partners, Clearvision Ventures, Cyberstarts VC, Flybridge Capital Partners, Fontinalis Partners, National Grid Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Root Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Spark Capital, Square Peg Capital, Danny Hadar
May 1, 2023	Patented.ai	$4.0M Pre-seed	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, Arrive, Boston Seed Capital, Founder Collective, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, David Chang, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky
May 1, 2023	Zip	$100.0M Series C	—	186 Ventures, Accomplice VC, AirAngels, Arrive, Bond, Boston Seed Capital, Cedar Capital Group, Chemistry VC, Comal Ventures, CRV, Impellent Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, NextView Ventures, Northside Ventures, Operator Collective, Predictive VC, The Hit Forge, Village Global, VitalStage Ventures, Y Combinator, Balaji Srinivasan, David Chang, Derrick Li, Jeff Seibert, Jennifer Lum, Scott Belsky

Financial History

Total Raised

N/A

Valuation

N/A

Leadership Team

Key people at Baseline Ventures.

Steve Anderson

Investor

Leadership Team

Key people at Baseline Ventures.

Steve Anderson

Investor

Deep Dive

High-Level Overview

Baseline Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2006 by Steve Anderson, focused on helping founders bridge the critical funding gap between individual angel investors and larger institutional capital. The firm operates as a pioneering “micro VC” model, emphasizing speed, founder-friendly terms, and deep operational support at the seed and Series A stages. Baseline invests primarily in technology-driven startups across enterprise software, AI, fintech, e-commerce, and consumer internet, with a strong bias toward product-led, founder-centric companies.

Its mission is to back exceptional founders at the earliest stages—often as the first institutional check—and provide them with strategic guidance, recruiting help, and access to a powerful network of founders, operators, and follow-on investors. With a track record that includes breakout companies like Instagram, SoFi, TaskRabbit, Stitch Fix, and PagerDuty, Baseline has played a significant role in shaping the modern startup ecosystem, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Origin Story

Baseline Ventures was founded in 2006 by Steve Anderson, a former product manager and early-stage investor who saw a structural gap in the venture landscape: many promising startups struggled to raise their first institutional round after angel funding. At the time, traditional VC firms were often too large or late-stage focused to write small, founder-friendly checks, while angels lacked the bandwidth and resources to provide sustained support.

Anderson launched Baseline as a lean, founder-first micro VC based in San Francisco, designed to move quickly, write smaller checks, and become a true partner to founders from day one. Over time, the firm built a reputation for spotting product-led outliers early—Instagram being the most iconic example, where Baseline was the first institutional investor. As the micro VC model gained traction, Baseline’s success helped validate the power of small, focused funds that could act as force multipliers for early-stage founders.

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Core Differentiators

Pioneering Micro VC Model: Baseline helped define the modern micro VC playbook—small fund size, concentrated portfolio, and a solo GP (Steve Anderson) making all investment decisions. This allows for fast, founder-friendly deals with minimal bureaucracy.

First Institutional Check: The firm specializes in being the first institutional investor in a company, helping founders cross the threshold from angel funding to institutional capital while retaining control and optionality.

Founder-Centric Philosophy: Baseline is known for its hands-on, low-ego approach—providing practical help with recruiting, product strategy, and follow-on fundraising rather than trying to “lead” every board.

Powerful Network Effects: Through decades of early bets on breakout companies, Baseline has cultivated deep relationships with top-tier founders, operators, and later-stage investors (like Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, and FLOODGATE), which it leverages to help portfolio companies scale.

Strong Track Record: With over 200 investments and more than 50 exits (including Instagram, Weebly, ExactTarget, CircleCI, and multiple IPOs), Baseline has consistently delivered outsized returns, reinforcing its reputation as a top-tier early-stage investor.

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Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Baseline Ventures emerged at a pivotal moment in tech history—the rise of mobile, social, and SaaS—when small, product-driven teams could build massive companies with relatively little capital. The firm rode the wave of the “app economy” and the democratization of distribution through app stores and social platforms, backing companies that redefined categories: Instagram in social media, SoFi in fintech, TaskRabbit in on-demand labor, and Stitch Fix in personalized commerce.

By focusing on seed and early-stage rounds, Baseline helped normalize the idea that a $500K–$1M check could be enough to validate a product, gain traction, and attract top-tier follow-on capital. This model has since been widely adopted, influencing the rise of countless micro VCs and syndicates. Baseline’s success also highlighted the outsized impact a small, focused fund can have on the ecosystem—proving that capital efficiency, founder alignment, and pattern recognition often matter more than fund size.

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Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Baseline Ventures is well-positioned to continue backing the next generation of category-defining startups, particularly in AI, vertical SaaS, and fintech—areas where small, agile teams can build defensible moats quickly. As the early-stage landscape becomes more competitive, Baseline’s reputation, track record, and founder-first ethos will remain key advantages.

The firm’s future influence will likely come less from scaling fund size and more from doubling down on what it does best: identifying exceptional founders at the earliest possible moment, writing the first institutional check, and helping them navigate the critical early years. In an era where timing, product insight, and network matter more than ever, Baseline’s model—simple, focused, and founder-aligned—remains a powerful blueprint for early-stage investing.

Sources

High-Level Overview

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Origin Story

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Core Differentiators

Pioneering Micro VC Model: Baseline helped define the modern micro VC playbook—small fund size, concentrated portfolio, and a solo GP (Steve Anderson) making all investment decisions. This allows for fast, founder-friendly deals with minimal bureaucracy.

First Institutional Check: The firm specializes in being the first institutional investor in a company, helping founders cross the threshold from angel funding to institutional capital while retaining control and optionality.

Founder-Centric Philosophy: Baseline is known for its hands-on, low-ego approach—providing practical help with recruiting, product strategy, and follow-on fundraising rather than trying to “lead” every board.

Powerful Network Effects: Through decades of early bets on breakout companies, Baseline has cultivated deep relationships with top-tier founders, operators, and later-stage investors (like Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures, and FLOODGATE), which it leverages to help portfolio companies scale.

Strong Track Record: With over 200 investments and more than 50 exits (including Instagram, Weebly, ExactTarget, CircleCI, and multiple IPOs), Baseline has consistently delivered outsized returns, reinforcing its reputation as a top-tier early-stage investor.

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Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

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