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 Pre-Seed & Seed

First Rays invests in high-quality post-product/pre-revenue startups.

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FAQ

  • What stage do you invest in?

    Our investments are almost always into Seed stage rounds. Occasionally we will do pre-Seed and small Series A. We love when companies have revenue (naturally), but we are comfortable investing pre- revenue (and do so most of the time). When we invest pre-revenue, we expect the company to be generating revenue within 6-12 months.

  • What’s your check size?

    We have a 2-check strategy. We generally write a $500K-$750K first check in a small round or $1M-$1.5M when we lead/co-lead in a larger round. We reserve up to 2X that amount for follow-on investments into our best performing companies when they get to the Series A.

  • Do you have a geographic focus?

    We consider ourselves very knowledgeable about the US tech ecosystem, and therefore concentrate on the US. It’s hard to be good at investing if you don’t have a strong understanding of the ecosystem. We also invest in companies globally who have significant plans to entering the US enterprise market.

  • How big is your fund?

    We have a total of $50M in AUM and are growing.

  • Do you lead rounds?

    We lead, co-lead and don’t lead.

  • Do you require Board seats?

    No. But when it makes sense, we’ll negotiate a Board seat.

  • Do you prefer to go it alone or co-invest?

    We have few hard and fast rules, but this is one. We always co-invest with other funds, occasionally angel groups. We want our companies to have more capital and we believe other investors bring something to the table too. We truly believe it takes a village to raise a startup.

  • What investment instruments are you comfortable with?

    Priced rounds, SAFEs and Convertible Notes.

  • Who are your LPs?

    What really differentiates us is the fact that the majority of our investors are people and companies in the tech industry. We take advantage of this to the benefit of our portfolio companies by selectively introducing them to our LPs to help with their go-to-market strategies. Oh, and we have about 50 LPs, so lots to choose from.

Our focus

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Pre-Seed & Seed

Pre-Seed & Seed

Infrastructure Software

Infrastructure Software

Motivated Founders

Motivated Founders

Specialized Support

Specialized Support