World’s First AI-Only PortfolioBefore Any VC
Top DecilePerformance

The world’s first AI-only venture fund.

Vela Partners has invested exclusively in AI since the firm’s founding in 2017, well before the current AI cycle made the category obvious. Across three funds and more than ten years, every portfolio company has been an AI company. The thesis has not changed: AI will reshape every industry it touches, and the highest-quality founders in the AI era are best identified by quantitative, scientific methods.

50+Portfolio Companies
10+Exits
10+Years of AI-Only Investing

Vela is an AI-native, product-led, quant, scientific venture capital firm. Our portfolio spans pre-seed through Series A. The categorization below is consistent across all three funds: a company we backed early in the firm’s history and a company we backed recently may sit in the same bucket if they address the same AI capability. That continuity is the point.

For the methodology behind how we evaluate AI founders and companies, see our research program and the VCBench benchmark.

Agentic AI and autonomous systems

Companies building AI agents that take action, run workflows end-to-end, or operate autonomously in the physical or digital world. This is where the application layer of modern AI is most visible, and it is where we have been most active recently.

  • Bito

    AI agents for software engineers.

  • RadiantOps

    LLM-powered planning tool for engineering teams.

  • Thunk

    No-code AI agents for enterprises.

  • Auxia

    Agentic marketing platform that orchestrates personalized customer journeys.

  • Rigor

    LLM-powered cybersecurity tool orchestration.

  • Promise

    AI-powered movie studio.

  • RefiBuy

    Agentic solutions for e-commerce.

  • Simular

    Agentic computer use.

  • Lovie

    Agentic banking.

  • Cartken

    Autonomous robots for delivery and logistics.

  • Limitless

    Personal AI for memory and meetings.

    Acquired by Meta
  • Promoted

    Ad ranking and recommendation systems.

    Acquired by Dropbox
  • Bear Robotics

    Service robots for restaurants and hospitality.

    Acquired by LG

Foundation models and scientific AI

Companies building new AI capabilities at the model layer, in scientific domains, or at the frontier of what is computationally possible. These are the bets where the technical risk is highest and the upside is structural.

AI for industry

Companies applying AI to a specific vertical, where domain expertise plus AI capability produces a defensible product. The vertical AI bucket is the largest and most diverse part of our portfolio because the surface area of “AI applied to industry X” is itself enormous.

  • The AI Assessment Company

    AI-native education and assessment.

  • LevelPlane

    AI-native procurement for manufacturing firms.

  • Pensieve

    AI-powered tutoring and grading for teachers.

  • Akool

    GenAI for marketing.

  • Firefly

    AI-powered out-of-home advertising on vehicle-mounted digital displays.

  • Phaidra

    Industrial AI for cooling, energy, and operations in heavy industry.

  • goooods

    B2B commerce platform serving retailers and brands.

  • Huckleberry

    AI-powered pediatric sleep and family wellness platform.

  • Vieu

    AI for relationship and pipeline intelligence in B2B sales.

  • Brox

    AI digital twins of real people for market research and behavioral prediction.

  • Volt

    AI-powered computer vision for physical security.

  • Base

    AI for physical security and urban risk intelligence.

  • Arena

    AI-powered live experiences and audience engagement.

  • Axiom Cloud

    AI for refrigeration and HVAC efficiency.

  • Meditopia

    Mental wellness platform.

  • Kunduz

    AI-powered tutoring at scale across emerging markets.

  • Golden

    Knowledge graph and compliance AI.

    Acquired by ComplyAdvantage
  • WaveOne

    AI video compression.

    Acquired by Apple
  • Vartana

    SaaS sales financing.

    Acquired by Capchase

AI-native infrastructure and data

Companies building the data, identity, security, and tooling layer that AI applications need to run safely at scale. Infrastructure investments are typically less obvious than application investments but they compound over longer timeframes.

  • OwnId

    Passwordless login and authentication.

    Acquired by Unico
  • Nominal

    Test data and instrumentation infrastructure for hardware.

  • Cerby

    Identity security for non-standard SaaS applications.

  • Lightup

    Data quality and observability.

  • Polymer

    Business intelligence for startups and SMBs.

  • CloudNatix

    Cloud cost and operations infrastructure.

  • LeakSignal

    Application data security.

    Acquired by F5
  • Anything

    Text-to-app platform.

  • Kuika

    Low-code application platform.

  • Copper

    CRM built natively on Google Workspace.

  • Jobox

    On-demand labor for tradespeople.

    Acquired by Talus Pay
  • ProtoPie

    Design prototyping platform.

  • Interviewing.io

    Anonymous technical interview practice.