Partner from Inception.
For Bold Technical Founders Building the Autonomous Enterprise
Before you build your team, before you write your first line of code, before you even take your first check—that’s when boldstart gets to work. We collaborate with technical founders well before company creation, lead pre-product rounds at Inception, and rally our early adopter network to help turn bold ideas into category-creating iconic companies.
From AI-native infrastructure, security, apps, and models, we back the builders reimagining how businesses operate.
We’ve been in the trenches with Snyk, Clay, Protect AI, CrewAI, Tessl, Generalist, Topos Bio, and so many more from Inception.
The Latest
boldstart 2025 recap »
ToposBio – unlocking “Undruggable” Targets – welcome to boldstart »
Keycard: The Identity and Access Platform for AI Agents, Welcome to boldstart! »
NYT – Clay, a Sales Tool for the A.I. Era, Raises $100 Million at $3.1 billion valuation »
WSJ – Boldstart Ventures Raises $250 Million AI Fund, Looking to Move Fast »
Announcing boldstart Fund VII: Inception Reloaded — $250M to Build the Autonomous Enterprise »
From Inception to AI security leader – ProtectAI’s journey to $700M+ exit to Palo Alto Networks »
Kustomer raises $30M Series B -Meta Acquired His Company for $1 Billion, and Then Changed Its Mind. Now, He’s Charting a New Path »
Ed joins Trends with Friends Podcast: Inside AI’s New VC Reality »
Ed Sim on the Carta Podcast: Backing Founders From Day Zero »
boldstart technical founder summit — AI giveth and AI taketh away + other 🔑 learnings »
Grepr – Next Generation Reliability Platform for an AI-Powered World – Welcome to boldstart! »
Turpentine VC: E66: Why Inception Investing Beats Traditional Seed with Ed Sim of Boldstart Ventures »
Tessl worth a reported $750 million after latest $100 million funding to help it build ‘AI native’ software development platform (Fortune) »
Web3 security firm Hypernative raises $16 million in Series A funding (The Block) »
Ed shares 28 years of lessons as an enterprise inception investor on The Peel Podcast »
Forbes Cover Story on Ed for Midas Seed List 2024 »
Congrats Ed for #1 on “The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2024” for 2nd year »
There’s not just one playbook.
Getting from idea to Series A is a tangled path. There’s no prescription. You need a true believer in what you are doing, to help you figure out what’s next and be with you when it’s hard to see the path ahead. That’s what boldstart does, and we’ve done it repeatedly for more than 10 years now.