Premise VC: Larco and Bent Launch Founder-First Seed Fund
TL;DR
Vanessa Larco (ex-NEA partner) and Mercedes Bent (ex-Lightspeed Venture Partners) have launched Premise VC, a San Francisco firm writing $500K to $3 million checks exclusively into pre-seed and seed technical founders building AI-native software. Neither the total fund size nor a specific close date has been disclosed publicly; what's on record is the check-size range, the stage focus, and a founder-selection framework built around seven traits rather than idea quality. The launch matters less for its dollar figure and more as a data point in a broader trend: senior partners are leaving multi-billion-dollar platforms to build small, single-stage funds explicitly because check size and founder proximity have become competitive weapons at the earliest rounds.
Key Takeaways
This is a defection story as much as a fund launch. Larco spent nearly eight years at NEA as a partner and investment committee member; Bent spent six years at Lightspeed. Both left platforms managing billions to write sub-$3 million checks again. That's not a step down in ambition, it's a bet that the earliest check is where differentiated returns and differentiated founder relationships now live.
The "check size that hurts" thesis is the real product. Larco's framing, that founders want an investor for whom the check is a meaningful percentage of the fund, is a direct shot at multi-stage megafunds that treat pre-seed as a reserve-building exercise rather than a conviction bet. Emerging managers have been making this argument for years; what's new is how explicitly LPs and founders alike now reward it.
No disclosed fund size is a signal, not an omission. Neither of the two independent pieces of reporting we found (TokenPost, Crunchbase News) cites a total fund size, only the $500K-$3M check range. Third-party aggregators put "tracked capital" at roughly $100M, but that figure isn't confirmed by the firm and we're not treating it as fact. Funds that lead with check size instead of total AUM are usually optimizing their narrative around founder experience, not fund scale, which fits Premise's stated positioning.
The SVB collapse keeps reshaping seed-stage manager formation. Larco explicitly credits the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse with accelerating founders' preference for smaller, dedicated early-stage funds over multi-stage brand names. Three years on, that shock is still functioning as the origin story for a wave of solo-GP and two-partner fund launches, Premise being the latest example.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Premise VC (also referenced as Premise Ventures)
Fund Size: Not publicly disclosed by the firm
Stage: Pre-seed and seed, exclusively
Check Size: $500,000 to $3 million
Geography: United States, with concentrated activity in San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta
Focus: Technical founders building AI-native tools and agentic software, spanning both consumer and enterprise use cases
Key LPs: Not publicly disclosed
Why This Fund Matters
Premise VC is a useful case study in what's happening to the pre-seed and seed market as venture fund sizes have ballooned. Larco's own explanation is blunt: at a fund managing $3 billion to $6 billion, a $2 million check can never be a real priority, no matter how talented the partner writing it is. That's simple fund math, not a critique of any one firm, and it's the same math that's driven a wave of partners out of multi-stage platforms and into solo or duo-GP vehicles over the past three to four years.
What makes Premise worth watching is the specificity of its positioning. Rather than pitching "hands-on support" as a marketing line, Larco and Bent built the fund the way they'd expect a portfolio company to build a product: interviews with their target founder ICP, iteration on what founders actually value versus what VCs assume they value, and a stated willingness to cut features (in this case, VC "best practices") that don't test well. That's a meaningfully different starting posture than most emerging managers, who tend to lead with pedigree and let the product design follow.
The firm's contrarian angle on consumer and fintech is also notable. Capital has crowded overwhelmingly into enterprise AI over the past two years, and consumer-focused GPs have had a hard time raising. Larco's argument, that AI-driven shifts in consumer behavior make this exactly the wrong moment to abandon the category, is a real bet against the current allocator consensus. If she's right, Premise is positioned ahead of a rotation; if she's early, the firm will spend its first fund cycle underwriting a thesis the broader market hasn't caught up to yet.
On underwriting methodology, Premise's "founder over idea" framework isn't new in concept, most good seed investors will say some version of it, but the operational rigor described (one-to-three calls a day for three to five days during diligence, plus extensive back-channel referencing) is closer to what growth-stage investors do for Series B diligence than what typically happens at pre-seed. That's expensive to run at scale, which is presumably why Premise is staying concentrated in a handful of cities where the partners already have dense networks rather than trying to cover the whole country.
The Team
Vanessa Larco co-founded Premise VC with Mercedes Bent in early 2025. Larco spent nearly eight years as a partner and investment committee member at New Enterprise Associates, investing across enterprise software, developer tools, and consumer technology, with deals including Kindred, Cleo, Greenlight, Mejuri, and Evident. She was also a board observer at Robinhood ahead of its 2021 IPO. Before venture capital, Larco worked as a product leader at Twilio and Box and earlier on Xbox and Kinect at Microsoft, and she founded and sold an app development startup, giving her both operator and product-leadership credibility that shows up directly in how Premise evaluates teams.
Mercedes Bent spent six years as a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners focused on early-stage investing. Public reporting to date names Larco and Bent as the fund's two general partners; no additional GPs, venture partners, or advisors have been disclosed as part of the launch, and we found no indication of departed or former partners to flag.
What This Means for Founders
Technical founders building AI-native products at the pre-seed or seed stage, particularly in consumer, fintech, or agentic software, are the direct target here. Premise's pitch to founders is explicit: expect an investor for whom your check is a meaningful percentage of the fund, extensive pre-investment diligence conversations, and a partner who will push on whether your product is actually faster, cheaper, or easier than the incumbent workflow rather than just AI-flavored. Founders outside Premise's core geographies (SF, NY, Atlanta) or those building single-model wrapper products without a clear cost-structure argument should expect a harder sell.
For founders evaluating term sheets from both megafunds and firms like Premise, the practical question Larco poses is worth asking of any investor: will this check be big enough, relative to your fund, that you'll fight for us when things get hard? That's a fair diligence question to turn back on any VC at any stage, and it's becoming a more common one as founders who lived through the SVB scramble compare notes.
Fund Momentum Take
We like the discipline here more than we like the novelty. The "founder-first, check-size-that-hurts" positioning isn't unique to Premise, several other two-partner and solo-GP funds have built the same pitch over the past few years, but Larco and Bent are bringing genuinely strong platform pedigree (NEA and Lightspeed, respectively) to a stage where that kind of judgment is scarce. The real test isn't the launch, it's whether the diligence rigor described here (multiple daily calls over several days, deep back-channeling) is sustainable at fund-scale deployment without becoming a bottleneck that costs them competitive deals to faster-moving angels and micro-funds.
The undisclosed fund size is the one thing we'd flag as worth watching rather than criticizing. A firm this deliberate about positioning has presumably made a conscious choice not to lead with a dollar figure, and that's consistent with a strategy built around founder experience over AUM bragging rights. But it also means LPs and founders alike are being asked to underwrite the team and the thesis without the one number that usually anchors comparisons to peer funds. We'd want to see that number, and Premise's early portfolio, before making a stronger call on whether this fund lives up to its own pitch.
Our bet: this is a well-built fund from credible operators entering a crowded but still underserved lane. The consumer and fintech contrarianism is the more interesting thesis than the process design, and it's the one we'd watch most closely over the next 18 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Premise VC's check size?
Premise invests between $500,000 and $3 million per deal, concentrated exclusively in pre-seed and seed rounds.
Who founded Premise VC?
Vanessa Larco, a former NEA partner, and Mercedes Bent, a former Lightspeed Venture Partners partner, co-founded the firm in early 2025.
How big is Premise VC's total fund?
The firm has not publicly disclosed a total fund size. Only the per-deal check-size range has been confirmed through reporting.
What does Premise VC invest in?
The firm backs technical founders building AI-native tools and agentic software for both consumer and enterprise use cases, with particular interest in products that are measurably faster, cheaper, or easier than existing workflows.
Where does Premise VC invest?
The firm is US-focused, with concentrated activity in San Francisco, New York, and Atlanta, where the partners have the deepest founder networks.
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