Vicus Ventures Closes $55M Debut Fund on a 'Village' Model of Seed Investing
TL;DR
Vicus Ventures, founded by brothers Raj and Sunny Singh Sandhu, has closed its debut seed fund at a deliberately capped $55 million — a number chosen to honor the family's roots in Punjab, "the land of five rivers." First reported by Fortune, the fund formalizes two years of SPV-driven investing and is built around an unusual asset: an LP base engineered as a founder-support network, spanning partners at General Catalyst, Bain Capital, and Kleiner Perkins alongside operators and cultural figures from McLaren CEO Zak Brown and former Amazon consumer chief Jeff Wilke to Drake and Chris Paul. The pitch: capital is commoditized; the village is not.
Key Takeaways
The LP list is the product. Vicus has effectively productized its cap table: a curated roster — Fortune reports 55 LPs, matching the five-rivers symbolism — assembled for direct founder access to downstream investors, operators, and distribution. When multistage funds pitch platform teams, a seed fund whose LPs include the co-heads of major growth franchises is running the same play with better unit economics.
Capping the fund is the credibility move. The Sandhus told Fortune they turned down "way more" capital. Whatever the counterfactual, a $55 million debut in a market that rewarded AUM accumulation signals the GPs are optimizing for returns and concentration, not fee income — the single most alignment-positive choice a new manager can make.
Network-as-a-service meets minimum dilution. The operating model — involved before a formal round, "winner treatment from day zero," no obsession with board seats — targets the actual pain of seed founders: fundraising leverage, customer introductions, and senior hiring, delivered without the ownership demands of a traditional lead.
Young GPs, deliberately institutional LP cover. At 31 and 27, with backgrounds at Alphabet's Verily and Bain rather than decade-long investing track records, the brothers have compensated by surrounding themselves with names that de-risk the franchise in founders' eyes. It is a modern path to seed relevance: distribution and access first, institutional pedigree second.
Fund Overview
Fund Name: Vicus Ventures Fund I
Fund Size: $55M (deliberately capped)
Stage: Seed and pre-seed, often engaging before a formal round
Check Size: Not disclosed
Geography: US-focused; offices in New York and San Francisco
Focus: Generalist early-stage with an access-network model; existing portfolio skews to applied AI, defense, and vertical software
Key LPs: Partners at General Catalyst, Bain Capital, and Kleiner Perkins; Zak Brown (McLaren Racing CEO), Jeff Wilke (former Amazon consumer CEO), David Blitzer (Blackstone), Mike Novogratz (Galaxy Digital), Tom Hale (Oura CEO), Nehal Raj (TPG), Mark Stevens (NVIDIA board), Sumir Chadha (WestBridge), Andy Golden (former Princeton PRINCO CIO), plus Drake and Chris Paul
Why This Fund Matters
Seed investing has been drifting toward two poles: multistage funds treating seed as cheap option-generation, and micro-funds competing on conviction and speed. Vicus is a bet on a third position — that in an era where AI has compressed the cost of building product, the binding constraint on early companies is access: to the right growth investors, the right first customers, the right senior hires. The firm's name (from the Latin for village) and its launch letter make the thesis explicit: it takes a village to build a company, and Vicus has assembled one on its LP register.
The structure of that register is worth studying. Individual partners at General Catalyst, Kleiner Perkins, and Bain Capital as LPs create soft pipeline alignment for Series A and beyond — downstream investors with an economic stake in the seed portfolio's success. Operators like Wilke and Hale supply pattern recognition; figures like Brown, Drake, and Chris Paul supply distribution and cultural reach that most seed funds simply cannot manufacture. Skeptics will note, fairly, that LP status does not obligate anyone to take a meeting. The bet is that economic gravity plus curation beats a platform team.
The two-year runway before the formal close also matters. The Sandhus invested through SPVs from 2023 — SEC filings corroborate the pre-fund activity — building a 20-plus company portfolio before announcing anything. Launching with proof rather than promise, including a stealth defense breakout founded by an Anduril alum, is increasingly the standard playbook for emerging managers who lack institutional investing pedigrees, and Vicus executed it cleanly.
What the fund does not yet have is a demonstrated exit engine or a disclosed check-size discipline, and its generalist mandate means it will collide with every well-branded seed firm in the market. The village model's real test arrives when a portfolio company struggles — networks show up eagerly for winners; the differentiated firms show up for everyone else.
The Team
Vicus is run by brothers Raj Singh Sandhu, 31, and Sunny Singh Sandhu, 27 — ages and backgrounds per Fortune's reporting. Raj spent roughly three years at Alphabet's life-sciences arm Verily working on wearables and AI; Sunny was previously a consultant at Bain. The family story is central to the firm's identity: the brothers trace their roots to a 50-person village in Punjab and a multigenerational family of Indian Army and Air Force servicemen and farmers — the origin of both the firm's name and its $55 million cap. They founded the firm in 2024 and operate from New York and San Francisco. Neither brother carries a prior institutional venture track record, which makes the fund's LP construction — and the two years of pre-fund investing — the substantive basis for underwriting them.
Early Portfolio
The firm reports more than 20 portfolio companies from its pre-fund investing period. Named early breakouts include Specter, a stealth defense company founded by Anduril alum Xerxes Libsch; Avoca, which builds AI agents handling calls for HVAC and plumbing businesses; Pallet, and Yuzu Health. The visible pattern — applied AI in unglamorous verticals plus national-security exposure — is a sensible place for a network-driven seed fund to hunt, since both categories reward exactly the kind of customer and government-adjacent introductions Vicus's LP roster can provide.
What This Means for Founders
For seed-stage founders — particularly in applied AI, defense, and vertical software — Vicus offers a specific trade: a check that arrives with engineered access to growth investors, marquee operators, and cultural distribution, from a firm explicitly uninterested in maximal ownership or board control. Founders whose next twelve months depend on landing lighthouse customers, senior executives, or a strong Series A syndicate will get the most from the model. The firm engages early, often before a round exists, so the right moment to build the relationship is before you need it.
Diligence the network like any other product claim. Ask which LPs have actually shown up for existing portfolio companies, and how introductions get brokered in practice. And note what a capped, concentrated fund implies: follow-on reserves are finite, and the firm's leverage in later rounds will come from its relationships rather than its balance sheet.
Fund Momentum Take
Vicus is the most fully realized version yet of a thesis we expect to define this seed vintage: that curated LP networks are the new platform team. Plenty of funds gesture at it; the Sandhus built the entire firm around it, told a coherent story from family village to fund cap, and shipped two years of portfolio before asking for attention. As brand construction for an emerging manager, it is close to flawless — a Fortune exclusive, a McLaren CEO endorsement, and a launch letter that reads like a founding myth.
The skeptic's case writes itself. The GPs are young, the institutional track record is two years of SPVs with no disclosed markups or exits, and network effects in venture have a habit of being strongest in the deck and weakest in the down round. The 55-LP roster is impressive but non-binding, and a generalist mandate offers no structural insulation from the most competitive seed market in a decade. This is a fund underwritten on access and judgment, with the evidence for the latter still accruing.
Our bet: the model is real but the moat is execution. If even a handful of the 20-plus early positions convert into breakout Series A stories visibly accelerated by the network — Specter is the one to watch — Vicus Fund II becomes one of the hottest emerging-manager raises of 2028. If not, it will have been a beautifully told story about a commodity product.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Vicus Ventures?
A seed-stage venture firm founded in 2024 by brothers Raj and Sunny Singh Sandhu, based in New York and San Francisco. It closed its debut fund at $55 million in June 2026, as first reported by Fortune.
Why is the fund exactly $55 million?
The firm deliberately capped Fund I at $55 million as an homage to the family's roots in Punjab, "the land of five rivers." Fortune reports the fund also counts 55 LPs, and that the brothers turned down substantially more capital.
Who are Vicus Ventures' LPs?
A curated network including partners at General Catalyst, Bain Capital, and Kleiner Perkins, operators like former Amazon consumer CEO Jeff Wilke and Oura CEO Tom Hale, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, Blackstone's David Blitzer, Galaxy Digital's Mike Novogratz, and cultural figures including Drake and NBA star Chris Paul.
What does the "village" model mean in practice?
Vicus treats its LP network as the core product: direct founder access to downstream investors, customers, operators, and talent. The firm engages before formal rounds, avoids fixating on board seats and ownership, and promises hands-on support to every company from day zero.
What has Vicus Ventures invested in?
More than 20 companies from its pre-fund SPV period, including Specter (stealth defense, founded by an Anduril alum), Avoca (AI agents for home-services businesses), Pallet, and Yuzu Health.
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