The fund

Virtual Capital 18Z Foundation.

One pool of capital, seven technology streams, and a desk that writes the bear case before it writes a cheque. We back builders early — in equity, in SAFEs, and by buying a portion of the token when the project is onchain.

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Fund size

$18M

Foundation treasury, deployed from one pool

Cheque size

$50k — $750k

Equity, SAFE, or token purchase

Stage

Pre-seed — Series A

Earlier is fine if the build is real

Deployed to date

$6.4M

Across 14 positions

Positions held

9 equity · 5 token

Decision time

21 days

Submission to yes or no

Portfolio and past investments.

Including the ones that went wrong. A written-down position tells you more about a fund than a logo wall does.

Ledgerline

Crypto & onchain financeActive

Settlement rails for cross-border B2B payments. We funded the corridor build-out after tracking real, non-circular volume for two quarters.

Seed · $400k · 2024

Cadence Robotics

Robotics & embodimentActive

Pick-and-place cells for mid-size contract manufacturers. Payback under 20 months on the first paying line.

Seed · $600k · 2024

Tessel Compute

Artificial intelligenceActive

Inference scheduling that cut cost per completed task by 41% for its first three customers.

Pre-seed · $250k · 2025

Northwatt

Energy & computeActive

Interconnect queue tooling for datacentre developers. Bought in alongside an infrastructure lead.

Series A · $750k · 2025

Halo Diagnostics

Bio & health systemsActive

Trial-site operations software. Backed on cost per enrolled patient, not on TAM.

Seed · $350k · 2025

Stackless

Frontier softwareExited

Developer tooling with bottom-up team adoption. Acquired by a platform vendor 14 months after entry.

Pre-seed · $150k · 2023

Aperture Defense

Defense & resiliencePartial exit

Dual-use sensing. Prototype converted to a programme of record; we took a partial secondary.

Seed · $500k · 2023

Mesh Markets

Crypto & onchain financeWritten down

Onchain market maker. Written down after volumes turned out to be incentive-driven — recorded in the case files.

Seed · $300k · 2023

The application process.

Submit

Send the project through the submit page. Stage, what you are raising, the pitch, the full write-up and links. Free, no intro needed.

Automated review

The desk produces a written review within minutes: strengths, weaknesses, what investors will push on, and where to improve. You get it by email and on screen.

Human read

An analyst reads every file after the machine does. Anything that fits a live stream goes to the partner call with a one-page memo attached.

Diligence

Two weeks: references, numbers behind the claims, code or product walkthrough, and for tokens the holder and liquidity picture. We write the bear case before we write the cheque.

Decision and funding

Yes or no within 21 days of submission, with reasons either way. On a yes we fund by equity, SAFE, or by buying a portion of the token with foundation capital.

What we need to see

→A working thing people use, not a deck describing one
→One number that moves and that you can explain
→A founder who knows their own bear case
→A market we already cover in one of the seven streams
→Room for a $50k–$750k cheque to matter

Building something? Start the application.

Submissions are free and read by a person. You get a written review either way — funded or not.

Apply for funding

Portfolio positions and fund figures are published for information only. Nothing here is an offer of securities or investment advice.