Haystack is an early-stage venture capital firm founded by Semil Shah in 2013, based in San Francisco. The firm backs outlier founders at the earliest stages of software and technology startup formation, investing $500K–$2M in initial rounds across sectors including AI, consumer, cloud/SaaS, and national security.
Deal activity increased 100% year-over-year (6 deals in the last 12 months). Their most common stage is seed (50% of deals). Average disclosed round size is $14.2M (across 122 rounds with reported amounts).
Portfolio
99
Fund Size
$85M
Top Stage
Seed
Last 12 Mo
6
Team
Portfolio Breakdown
Stage Distribution
Sector Distribution
Investment Activity
DealsAvg Round Size
Portfolio
129 investments
| Company | Round | Amount | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
 Onos Health | Series A | $17M | Aug 2026 |
 Pangram | Seed | $9M | Jul 2026 |
 Soma Energy | Seed | $7M | Apr 2026 |
 Synthefy | Seed | $6.5M | Jan 2026 |
 EraDrive | Seed | $5.3M | Dec 2025 |
 AlphaXiv | Seed | $7M | Nov 2025 |
 Birches Health | Series A | $20M | Sep 2025 |
 Conductor | Unknown | $15M | Apr 2025 |
 Oboe | Seed | $4M | Oct 2024 |
 Bounti | Seed | $16M | Sep 2024 |
 Norm Ai | Seed | $11.1M | Jun 2024 |
 Materia | Seed | $6.3M | Jun 2024 |
 Pomerium | Series A | $13.8M | Jun 2024 |
 Layup Parts | Seed | $9M | May 2024 |
 Polar Signals | Seed | $10.8M | Mar 2024 |
 Bench IQ | Pre-Seed | $2.1M | Feb 2024 |
| Norm Ai | Seed | $11.1M | Jan 2024 |
 Gravity | Series A | $30.5M | Jan 2024 |
 Gravity | Series A | $13M | Jan 2024 |
 Gravity | Series A | $13M | Jan 2024 |
| PPrewitt Ridge | Seed | $4.1M | Sep 2023 |
 Haus Analytics | Series A | $17M | Aug 2023 |
 Silo | Series C | $32M | Jul 2023 |
 Finley | Series A | $17M | Jan 2023 |
 Moxie | Series C | $25M | Jan 2023 |
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Top Co-Investors
Lux Capital15 shared
Y Combinator15 shared
Lightspeed Venture Partners14 shared
Menlo Ventures10 shared
Amplify Partners8 shared
SV Angel8 shared
Basis Set Ventures8 shared
Initialized Capital8 shared
Bloomberg Beta7 shared
Techstars7 shared
Tiger Global Management, LLC6 shared
Insight Partners6 shared
NextView Ventures6 shared
GV6 shared
Homebrew6 shared
Caffeinated Capital6 shared
Andreessen Horowitz5 shared
Root Ventures5 shared
Comcast Corporation5 shared
Bessemer Venture Partners5 shared
Last updated: 7 October 2026