The FM15: Emerging VC Managers with Fresh Money and a Track Record to Back It Up — H1 2026
Most VC rankings measure the wrong thing.
Forbes Midas ranks investors based on exits from deals made a decade ago. Signalrank automates MOIC calculations across established firms. Crunchbase lists everyone with a fund page. None of them answer the question a founder actually asks in 2026: who has fresh capital, has already proven something, and is structurally built to help me?
The FM15 is our answer.
Every six months, Fund Momentum tracks every new fund close across Europe, the US, and beyond. We see who raised, how much, from whom, and on what terms. From H1 2026 closes, we identified 15 emerging managers who stand out not because they manage the most capital, but because they score highest on four criteria that matter to founders:
LP Trust Signal · did existing LPs re-up, and did the fund oversubscribe? Capital follows conviction.
Early Track Record · exits, graduation rates, or marked returns from prior funds. Not promises, evidence.
Thesis Sharpness · how clearly defined is the investment thesis? A sharp thesis means real domain expertise for the founder.
Founder Alignment · how structurally aligned is the GP with founder success? GP background, fund size relative to check size, LP network quality.
We do not rank by AUM. We do not estimate returns we cannot verify. We do not include funds that have not closed capital since September 2024.
Here are the FM15 for H1 2026.
#1 · Refactor Capital · Zal Bilimoria
$50M Fund V | Hard Tech · Aerospace · Bio · Energy · Defense | San Francisco | Solo GP · Ex-Operator | Score 24/27
"The cleanest emerging-manager validation metric that exists: 100% LP re-up on Fund V."
Five funds in. One hundred percent LP re-up on Fund V. Every founder in the portfolio gets free mental health therapy and coaching for their entire team, paid out of Refactor's management company budget. That last detail is not a footnote, it is the clearest signal of what kind of investor Zal Bilimoria is.
Refactor invests $1 to $2 million checks at seed into aerospace, synthetic biology, energy, defense, and advanced manufacturing, sectors most software-focused VCs avoid. The thesis has been consistent across five funds without drift. The fund was raised in five phone calls and intentionally capped at $50M so Bilimoria could remain a true solo GP.
Notable portfolio: Astranis (pioneering MicroGEO satellites), Solugen (DOE financing comparable in scale to Tesla's), and a roster of hard-tech companies in nuclear, defense and advanced manufacturing where Refactor was often the first institutional cheque.
Why founders choose Refactor: Direct access to a solo GP who spent a decade building products at Google, Netflix, LinkedIn and a16z. Zal describes his role as "founders will have me on speed dial." At $50M with $1 to $2M checks, that is structurally possible.
#2 · Weekend Fund IV · Ryan Hoover & Vedika Jain
$25M Fund IV | Consumer · B2B · Inception Stage | San Francisco | Ex-Founder | Score 23/27
"First early-stage venture fund accessible to non-accredited US retail investors. Structural innovation, not a distribution gimmick."
Ryan Hoover built Product Hunt into the global launchpad for startups before selling to AngelList. He has been investing since 2017 through Weekend Fund, writing $100 to $300K checks into companies at the earliest possible stage, often before product-market fit exists as a concept.
Fund IV is the most structurally interesting fund on this list for one reason: USVC. Weekend Fund IV became the first early-stage venture fund accessible to non-accredited US retail investors through AngelList's new vehicle. That is not a distribution gimmick, it is a structural innovation in how early-stage capital gets formed and how operator LP networks get scaled.
The LP network: 350+ operators and founders from Apple, Anthropic, Stripe, Google DeepMind and DoorDash actively participate in portfolio support. This is not a passive LP list, it is a distribution and hiring network founders can access from day one. Weekend Fund decisions are documented as being made in days.
Why founders choose Weekend Fund: If you are building a consumer or B2B product and want an investor who has been on the other side of a Product Hunt launch, has 350+ operators ready to help, and moves faster than any institutional fund, this is it.
#3 (tie) · Cleo Ventures · Antoine Veret & Maxime Le Dantec
€30M Fund | European AI Pre-Seed & Seed | Paris | Career VC + Ex-Operator | Score 22/27
"40+ AI entrepreneurs as LPs, members hold carry. When your LPs have skin in the game, they actually show up."
Cleo Ventures launched in 2025 with a €30M pre-seed and seed fund focused exclusively on European AI founders. Tickets range from €300K to €1M. The firm is the most structurally innovative European AI fund on this list because of the Cleo Trailblazers Club, a network of 40+ operator-LPs who do not just provide capital, they hold carry. Members include Olivier Pailhes (Aircall), Lucie Buisson (Contentsquare) and Thomas Scialom (Meta AI).
The Trailblazers model solves the classic problem of VC-as-passive-capital: when your LPs have carry in the fund, they actually show up for portfolio companies. The fund is small enough to give real attention per founder and large enough to lead or co-lead rounds. Backers across consumer and enterprise AI.
Prior wins by the team: Antoine Veret previously backed early-stage companies including MatX, Fintool (acquired by Microsoft), Tomorro, DeepIP, Animaj, Lightdash, GitGuardian and Alice & Bob, spanning AI infrastructure, enterprise software, cybersecurity, quantum and applied AI.
Why founders choose Cleo: If you are a European AI founder at pre-seed and want an investor whose LP network is financially incentivised to help you win, the Cleo Trailblazers structure is unlike anything else in the European market.
#3 (tie) · Convective Capital · Bill Clerico
$85M Fund II | Disaster Resilience · Climate Adaptation · Physical Risk | San Francisco | Ex-Founder | Score 22/27
"79% Series A graduation rate from Fund I. Industry benchmark is 25 to 40%."
Bill Clerico founded WePay at 23, led it for 12 years through its acquisition by JPMorgan Chase for $400M, then ran the SMB payments business at the bank before launching Convective. He was also a part-time partner at Y Combinator. That combination of founder exit, corporate scale, and YC network is rare.
Convective began as a wildfire-focused fund, the thesis was contrarian when it launched, prescient by the time Fund II closed. Fund II expands from wildfire to all-hazard disaster resilience. The Fund I portfolio has reported collective revenue of approximately $100M and aggregate valuations near $2B. The team includes Kat Mañalac, a former decade-long YC partner who built the programs that supported billions in YC portfolio value.
The 79% Series A graduation rate from Fund I portfolio companies is the most objective founder-success metric on this entire list. Industry benchmarks for seed-to-Series-A graduation typically sit between 25% and 40% depending on vintage.
Why founders choose Convective: If you are building in climate resilience, disaster tech, or physical-world risk management, there is no more credible first-cheque investor in the world than Bill Clerico.
#5 · Mother Ventures · Allison Stern
$10M Fund I | Mom-as-Consumer · Family · Care | New York | Ex-Operator | Score 21/27
"$2.4 trillion in annual spending power, 85% of US household purchases. The largest underserved consumer market in America."
The Mom Economy thesis sounds niche until you see the number: $2.4 trillion in annual spending power, with mothers responsible for 85% of US household purchases. Mother Ventures is the first institutional fund built entirely around the mother-as-consumer.
Anchor LP: Tony James, former President and COO of Blackstone and current chair of Costco's board. Additional LPs include Jessica Rolph (founder of Lovevery) and female executives from Netflix, Rent the Runway, and Sesame Street. Allison Stern previously co-founded Tubular Labs (social video and influencer measurement) and was Operating Partner at The Chernin Group.
At $10M, this is the smallest fund on the list. That is also its superpower. Stern will have maximum attention for every founder she backs, and the LP network is consumer-native and media-savvy in a way generalist VC networks simply are not.
Notable portfolio (early): Coral Care (pediatric specialist booking for developmental delays) and Tin Can (Wi-Fi-enabled retro phone for kids). $4M deployed across 13 companies before Fund I final close.
Why founders choose Mother Ventures: If your startup serves mothers as customers, decision-makers, or users, there is no investor on earth who has built a more targeted network around that market.
#6 · Restive Ventures · Ryan Falvey & Tyler Griffin
$45M Fund III | AI-Native Fintech | San Francisco | Ex-Founder · Ex-Operator | Score 20/27
"Fund I marked at 6.3x. Fund II at 4x. Fund III's first investment was acquired by OpenAI three months out of stealth."
Both GPs have been on the founder side. Tyler Griffin co-founded Prism Money, a bill payment network acquired by BillGo/PayNearMe, then became Entrepreneur-in-Residence at JPMorgan's Financial Solutions Lab. Ryan Falvey led the Lab itself. Together they have been investing in fintech since 2018.
Fund III's thesis is AI-native financial services: agentic payments, autonomous underwriting, AI-driven financial operations. The track record is unusually transparent: Fund I (2019) is marked at 6.3x. Fund II (2021) at 4x. The first company backed from Fund III, Hiro (an AI personal finance startup), was acquired by OpenAI in April 2026, three months after coming out of stealth. The restive.com blog has published consistently since 2019, the best signal of a VC's thinking being accessible and honest.
Why founders choose Restive: Two GPs who have both founded and invested in fintech, with a 6.3x mark on their debut fund and a thesis precisely calibrated for the AI-native fintech wave.
#7 (tie) · Top Down Ventures · Chris Day, Mark Scott & Joel Abramson
$28M Founders Fund I (US$28M / C$38M) | MSP Software & AI | Vancouver | Ex-Founder / Ex-Operator | Score 19/27
"A 5.3x realized exit before Fund I finished deploying. Exceptionally rare for a debut fund."
This is the most specialised thesis on the list. MSP, managed service providers, is a $500B+ global market that almost no venture capital has touched institutionally. Top Down is the first dedicated fund in the category.
The GP bench is the actual moat. Chris Day, founder and chairman, founded IT Glue (acquired by Kaseya) and ScalePad, two of the largest software companies in the MSP ecosystem. Mark Scott, managing partner, founded N-able (NYSE: NABL). Joel Abramson, managing partner, co-founded Produce8 and previously led corporate development at Fully Managed through its acquisition. Roughly 75 combined years building and scaling inside the MSP category.
The proof arrived before Fund I finished deploying: a 5.3x exit via ConnectWise's acquisition of portfolio company zofiQ. A realised exit from a debut fund before full deployment is exceptionally rare. Fund I was oversubscribed at US$28M (C$38M) with 100+ LPs, the majority of whom are MSP founders, operators and executives.
Why founders choose Top Down: If you are building software for MSPs, this is the only fund that brings both institutional capital and three GPs who have each built a category-defining business inside the MSP ecosystem.
#7 (tie) · Meridian Ventures · Devon Gethers & Karlton Haney
$35M Fund I | MBA-Deferred Founders · Pre-Seed & Seed Enterprise Tech | Boston | Ex-Finance | Score 19/27
"The thesis is the product. The fund has access to founder deal flow no other institutional VC sees at that stage."
The thesis is the product: Meridian backs founders who deferred MBA admission to build companies first. That is not a demographic filter, it is a sourcing edge. The fund has access to founder deal flow no other institutional VC sees at that stage.
Devon Gethers (29) and Karlton Haney (28) met in Harvard Business School's deferred admission program in 2020. Gethers grew up in poverty in Washington State, studied behavioural science and finance at the University of Utah, then moved into private equity before founding and exiting a company of his own. Haney studied industrial engineering at the University of Arkansas and worked as an investor at the family office Stephens Group. Both graduated from HBS in 2025.
They cold-called LPs and knocked on doors to raise a $2.5M proof-of-concept fund that backed 45 companies, then closed an oversubscribed $35M Fund I backed by publicly traded banks, family offices and Fortune 500 executives. Check sizes are $500K at pre-seed, $750K at seed.
Why founders choose Meridian: If you deferred your MBA to build a company, Meridian is the only fund that was built specifically for you.
#7 (tie) · Transition Ventures · David Helgason
$150M Fund II | AI Plus Physical World · Industrial · Energy · Critical Minerals | London | Ex-Founder | Score 19/27
"Unity from a small Danish game engine to a $40B platform. Pattern recognition at that scale is rare."
David Helgason co-founded Unity and built it from a small Danish game engine into a real-time 3D platform that listed on the NYSE at a market cap above $13B and grew to power half the world's games plus an increasing proportion of industrial simulation. There are very few investors anywhere who have built something at that scale from inception.
Transition Ventures backs inception-through-Series-A companies at the intersection of AI and the physical world. Total firm AUM crosses $300M with Fund II. The senior investing team includes Ari Helgason (Index Ventures), Kristian Branaes (Atomico, CPP), Mona Alsubaei (USV Climate), Clara Ricard (Balderton, Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2024) and David Pacák (Earlybird, Picus Capital). Originally launched as a climate-focused fund, Fund II repositions around the physical-world bottlenecks the AI buildout is creating.
Notable portfolio: OLIX (photonics computing hardware, reported valuation around $1B), Applied Atomics (small modular nuclear reactors for data centres), Seneca (autonomous wildfire suppression drones), Upway (refurbished e-bikes, $60M Series C). Other names include Skye (industrial energy optimisation), Electricity Maps and Invisix (semiconductor metrology).
Why founders choose Transition: David Helgason has operated at the intersection of software, simulation and physical-world systems longer than almost any other investor. That pattern recognition is the thesis.
#10 (tie) · Kalos Ventures · Ashley Bittner
$78.8M Fund I (oversubscribed) | Workforce · Care · Education | New York | Ex-Operator + Career VC (Owl Ventures spinout) | Score 18/27
"Pivotal Ventures as anchor LP is a quality signal few other endorsements can match."
When Pivotal Ventures, Melinda French Gates's investment vehicle, anchors a debut fund, it is a quality signal few other endorsements can match. Kalos closed oversubscribed with Pivotal as anchor and MassMutual, GCM Grosvenor, ZOMA Capital and Sorenson Impact Advisory among the LP set.
Ashley Bittner is Managing Partner. Her background spans early-stage sector-focused investing at Owl Ventures ($2B AUM, the leading EdTech VC), a Special Assistant role in the Obama Administration's Department of Education, and Teach for America in the Bronx. Renée Beaumont sits as Partner and Executive Chair, with Kate Ballinger as Principal. The team's pattern recognition spans workforce, care and education with an explicit thesis around AI transformation meeting US demographic shifts.
Notable portfolio: Manifest (AI for SMB owners, founded by Sarah Horn), Rosarium Health (aging-in-place home modifications), and a stealth company founded by Jeff Wald.
Why founders choose Kalos: Pivotal Ventures as anchor LP brings a network particularly strong in policy, healthcare and education, exactly the sectors where institutional relationships open doors capital alone cannot.
#10 (tie) · Loom Ventures · Ilja Aizenberg & Toba Spiegel
€100M Fund I | European InfraTech CVC | Vienna | Ex-Operator · Career CVC | Score 18/27
"A purely financial CVC. No strategic mandate. That single decision answers the biggest founder objection to corporate capital."
STRABAG is one of Europe's largest construction and infrastructure groups, with €20 billion in 2025 output, 89,000 employees across more than 50 countries, and a record €31 billion order backlog. Loom Ventures is its venture arm, but with a structural difference that matters: there is no strategic mandate. Loom is positioned as a purely financial CVC, which solves the single biggest problem founders have with corporate venture, the fear of being instrumentalised for the parent company's agenda.
Aizenberg comes from M Ventures (Merck's corporate VC) with a deep-tech background in sensing, industrial data, enterprise AI and secure compute. Spiegel comes from Trill Impact with a decade of early- and growth-stage investing focused on software integrated into physical assets. Ervin Smajic (T.Capital) joins as senior associate. Tickets €1M to €5M at Seed and Series A.
Why founders choose Loom: European InfraTech founders get optional access to STRABAG's construction and infrastructure network without the strategic strings that make most CVCs founder-unfriendly.
#10 (tie) · Wisdom Ventures · Bradley Horowitz, Cecily Mak & Soren Gordhamer
$77.7M Fund II (oversubscribed, 8x jump from Fund I) | AI-Enabled Wellbeing | San Francisco | Ex-Operator | Score 18/27
"Fund I was $10M. Fund II is $77.7M. An 8x jump signals serious LP conviction."
An 8x jump from debut fund size in a single raise. The GP bench explains why LPs leaned in. Bradley Horowitz is the former VP of Product at Google who helped lead Photos and Gmail. Cecily Mak brings legal and operational depth from scaling startups. Soren Gordhamer founded the Wisdom 2.0 conference and brings the deepest network in mindfulness, wellbeing and conscious technology.
LP roster (Funds I and II): Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Stewart Butterfield (Slack), Evan Williams (Medium), Evan Sharp (Pinterest), Jen Rubio (Away) and Ho Nam (Altos Ventures). Former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy joined as Senior Venture Partner.
Fund II will deploy $1M to $5M cheques into approximately 40 mission-driven startups under an "AI-enabled wellbeing" thesis positioned at exactly the right moment: as AI accelerates productivity, burnout and human sustainability become the binding constraint. Fund I is reported in the top quartile of early-stage funds for its vintage, with early positions in OpenAI and Anthropic.
Why founders choose Wisdom: Reid Hoffman's network plus Vivek Murthy's public-health credibility plus a fund that grew 8x in one vintage signals serious momentum behind a thesis that is early but not speculative.
#10 (tie) · Factory Capital · Anna Samuelsson
A$25M (~US$18M) Commitment | Women's Midlife Health | Sydney | Ex-Operator | Score 18/27
"Not a conventional LP-raised fund. A balance-sheet commitment to build women's midlife health as an institutional VC category."
Factory Capital is not just backing companies in women's midlife health, it is attempting to create the category as an institutional VC vertical. Worth flagging up front: Factory Capital is structuring this as an A$25 million (approximately US$18 million) balance-sheet commitment rather than a conventional LP-raised fund. That gives the platform more strategic patience but a longer timeline to commercial traction, and changes how founders should think about the relationship.
The strategy launches with the Institute Advancing Women's Health (InAWH), a new Austin-based nonprofit focused on building treatment protocols, care pathways and clinician training for peri- and post-menopause care, led by CEO Paula Schneider (previously Susan G. Komen Foundation, American Apparel). Five to ten commercial businesses are expected to be backed on top of that clinical foundation. Target sectors include telehealth-led menopause care, employer benefits platforms, and clinical-grade supply chains. Implied cheque sizes run A$2.5M to A$5M.
Anna Samuelsson is Partner and Managing Director leading the initiative. Her decision to anchor the strategy came in part from her own experience navigating perimenopausal symptoms while being told she was too young for treatment.
Why founders choose Factory Capital: If you are building in women's health for the 40 to 60 demographic, there is no platform anywhere that has made a more explicit institutional commitment to this category, paired with clinical infrastructure most generalist VCs cannot provide.
#14 · Antler UK Fund II · Adam French, Hannah Leach & Jed Rose
£25M+ Fund II | UK Inception Stage (pre-team, pre-product) | London | Ex-Founder | Score 17/27
"British Business Bank's first commitment to Antler. The institutional stamp on the inception-stage model."
Adam French was a Goldman Sachs banker before co-founding Scalable Capital, a fintech unicorn now valued at $1.4B backed by BlackRock, Tencent and Hedosophia. Hannah Leach founded Houghton Street Ventures, the UK's first LSE alumni-focused fund. Jed Rose brings operator, advisor and investor experience from Seed to Series C. All three GPs have been on the founder side.
The British Business Bank's £25M cornerstone commitment, its first ever investment in Antler globally, alongside Lloyds Banking Group signals institutional confidence in both the team and the model. Antler's global portfolio has produced unicorns including Airalo and Lovable. The model is structurally unique: investment at inception, before the company exists, through an eight-week residency that fewer than 1% of applicants enter. Initial cheques up to £500K, with the strongest performers eligible for follow-on through Antler Elevate, the firm's later-stage vehicle.
Why founders choose Antler UK: If you are a UK founder at the very earliest stage, idea stage, pre-team, pre-product, Antler is the only institutional fund that backs you before you have anything to show.
#15 · Skybound · Thaleia Misailidou & George Varvarelis
$38M Fund I (oversubscribed) | Athens Deeptech · Pre-Seed & Seed | Athens, Greece | Career VC + Ex-Founder | Score 17/27
"The European Investment Fund does not anchor a fund without serious due diligence. Greece is now institutionally investable."
The European Investment Fund does not anchor a fund without serious due diligence. Skybound's EIF-backed $38M Fund I is the first institutional deeptech fund launched from Greece, and its first investment, Neurosoft Bioelectronics (stretchable brain-computer interfaces), signals a genuinely high-conviction thesis. When the EIF classifies a new geography as investable at the institutional level, it tends to precede a wave of capital following that signal.
Thaleia Misailidou previously invested at Marathon Venture Capital and has been active in the Greek deeptech ecosystem. George Varvarelis co-founded Augmenta, an agtech robotics company acquired by CNH Industrial. The fund writes $500K to $2M initial cheques across infrastructure, advanced computing, bioengineering and frontier technologies, with significant follow-on reserves and a concentrated portfolio strategy.
Why founders choose Skybound: Greek and Southern European deeptech founders have had no local institutional capital to anchor their early rounds. Skybound ends that.
Corrections and Notes (H1 2026 edition)
This edition reflects the following editorial revisions from the original draft:
- Transition Ventures: A claim that former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger had joined the GP bench has been removed. Gelsinger joined Playground Global, not Transition Ventures, as a General Partner in March 2025.
- Meridian Ventures: Pivotal Ventures was incorrectly listed as an anchor LP. Meridian's actual LP set is publicly traded banks, family offices and Fortune 500 executives. Pivotal Ventures anchored Kalos Ventures, not Meridian.
- Factory Capital: Fund size has been corrected from "$25M+ Fund I" to "A$25M (~US$18M) balance-sheet commitment." Factory Capital is not running this as a conventional LP-funded venture fund.
- Cleo Ventures, Top Down Ventures, Wisdom Ventures: GP names added (Antoine Veret & Maxime Le Dantec; Chris Day, Mark Scott & Joel Abramson; Bradley Horowitz, Cecily Mak & Soren Gordhamer respectively).
- GP Type taxonomy refined: The original "Ex-Investor" label has been replaced with the more accurate "Career VC" for managers whose primary trajectory has been in venture (Cleo, Kalos, Skybound). "Ex-Investor" was conceptually wrong because they are still actively investing. Updated taxonomy: Ex-Founder, Ex-Operator, Ex-Finance, Career VC, plus combinations thereof where the GP bench has mixed backgrounds.
Methodology
The FM15 is based on fund closes tracked by Fund Momentum between January and June 2026. To be considered, a fund must have raised or closed capital since September 2024.
Scoring uses four dimensions: LP Trust Signal (7 points) measures re-up rates and oversubscription as proxies for LP confidence. Early Track Record (7 points) captures exits, graduation rates, or marked returns from previous funds, not estimated future returns. Thesis Sharpness (7 points) evaluates how focused and differentiated the investment thesis is. Founder Alignment (6 points) assesses GP background, fund size relative to check size, and the quality of the LP network for founder support.
The FM15 is an editorial product. Scores are our assessments based on publicly available information. We do not accept payment for inclusion. We do not publish scores we cannot support with documented evidence. The FM15 publishes every six months, next edition: H2 2026.
Fund Momentum tracks 920+ active VC funds globally. All funds listed have raised capital since September 2024. Full scoring at fundmomentum.vc/fm15-methodology.
Have a fund closing to announce? Submit your fund here.
Need help raising capital? Check out our Fundraising Advisory services.