Boldstart Ventures

Boldstart was founded in 2010 by Ed Sim, with a first fund of $1 million. By its own account, “pre-seed” did not yet exist and seed investing was not yet mainstream, and it chose from the start to back founders themselves before any product, traction or even a pitch deck. Sim had previously co-founded Dawntreader Ventures, where he made early investments in Greenplum, GoToMeeting and LivePerson; he began his career building quantitative trading models at J.P. Morgan.⁠[1][2][3][3][3][2][2]

In 2015, Boldstart became an early investor in the developer security company Snyk and the email application Superhuman, which was later acquired by Grammarly. It had earlier invested in the security ratings company SecurityScorecard in 2013, and went on to invest in the data security and privacy company BigID in 2016 and in Clay in 2017.⁠[4][4][4][4][4]

On November 17, 2016, Boldstart announced that its third fund had been oversubscribed, continuing its focus on writing first checks for enterprise software startups.⁠[5]

On November 12, 2019, Boldstart announced its fourth fund, Boldstart IV, and its first opportunity fund, Opportunity I, totaling $157 million, to back enterprise software founders from day one to scale.⁠[6]

On November 12, 2020, Boldstart led a $4.2 million seed round for the cybersecurity company RecoRecoReco is an enterprise cybersecurity company founded in 2020 by Ofer Klein, Gal Nakash and Tal Shapira. Its products have expanded from securing collaboration tools and SaaS applications to securing AI agents, discovering the connections among an enterprise’s applications, identities, permissions and agents and revoking risky access; as of September 2026, the company had raised $140 million in total.Open the full entry, with participation from Angular Ventures and angel investors; it later took part in Reco’s 2022 Series A led by Zeev VenturesZeev VenturesZeev Ventures is a venture capital firm founded and managed single-handedly by Israeli-born investor Oren Zeev, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with no partners or employees; it invests mainly in software companies with Israeli connections, and its early investments include Navan, Houzz, Tipalti and Next Insurance.Open the full entry and Insight Venture Partners, its April 2025 additional funding, and its $30 million Series B led by Zeev Ventures in February 2026.⁠[7][7][7][8]

In January 2021, Ellen Chisa, who had worked with Boldstart as the founder of Dark, joined the team, initially as founder-in-residence.⁠[9][10]

On February 17, 2021, Boldstart announced its fifth fund, Boldstart V, and Opportunity II, totaling $230 million.⁠[11]

On June 1, 2022, Boldstart announced its sixth fund, boldstart vi ($192,168,111, about 20% larger than fund v), and opportunities iii ($175 million, more than double Opportunity II), totaling $367 million, to back developer-first, crypto infrastructure and SaaS founders; first checks could be as small as $250,000, with follow-on investments of up to $30 million. Ed Sim wrote that bigger is not better and that staying disciplined on core fund size would let the firm keep supporting the best technical founders. At the same time, Shomik Ghosh was promoted from principal to partner and Ellen Chisa from founder-in-residence to partner, expanding the partnership from two to four.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10][10][10]

On April 28, 2025, Palo Alto Networks announced its intent to acquire the AI security company Protect AI; Boldstart, which had backed the company from inception in 2022, described it as an exit of more than $700 million. Ed Sim recalled that the partnership began about three and a half years earlier with a conversation in Hawaii with founder Ian Swanson, before there was a pitch deck or even a company name.⁠[12][12][4][12][12]

On July 8, 2025, Boldstart announced its $250 million Fund VII, its largest fund to date and its 10th fund overall, bringing assets under management to about $1.1 billion. Lead initial checks from the new fund range from $500,000 to $15 million, with follow-ons available from the $175 million Opportunities III fund, which still had plenty of dry powder, and targets include AI infrastructure and application-layer startups, cybersecurity and crypto. Sim said the fund size meant the three partners needed to back only 10 to 12 new founding teams a year, allowing them to move fast, sometimes shaking hands on a deal the same day they meet a founder.⁠[3][3][1][3][3][1][1][1]

Boldstart is headquartered in Miami and calls itself “The Inception Fund,” working with technical founders before a company is formed, with first checks of $500,000 to $15 million across five focus areas: cybersecurity, AI infrastructure, physical AI, agents and “weird” ideas. As of October 2026, the portfolio companies listed on its website included Snyk, Reco, Protect AI, Keycard, BigID, SecurityScorecard, Clay, CrewAI, Tessl, Spectro Cloud, Generalist AI and Topos Bio; past exits include Kustomer, acquired by Meta.⁠[1][13][13][13][13][4][4][4][4][4][10]

As of October 2026, the team was led by founder and general partner Ed Sim, general partner Eliot Durbin and partner Ellen Chisa. Durbin had previously co-founded Penny Black, a New York private investment firm, in 2008.⁠[14][14][14][15]

Boldstart Ventures: Official website: https://boldstart.vc/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]

X: Public account: https://x.com/boldstartvc (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boldstart-ventures (opens in a new window)⁠[13]