Let the adventure begin
We invest up to $100k in pre-seed founders
Thesis
Pre-seed investing is a ticket for a ringside seat to the adventures and journeys of some of the smartest and most driven people. As founders and operators, we love hanging out and spending time with other founders solving big problems. As builders, we are excited about two phenomena creating amazing opportunities to build iconic companies and products.
In the past 20 years, tech companies have built insanely large consumer products or B2B SaaS aimed largely at other tech companies or technical problems. The next wave is building applications for the rest of the economy - industrials, transportation, services, utilities, and government. We believe that the next 20 years of innovation will dwarf the last 20 years. The intersection of hardware and software, Vertical-SaaS, and diffusion of tailored AI agents and applications are all leading in that direction.
Additionally, AI's growth is remarkable, with GPU advancements outpacing Moore's Law and the rapid scaling of large AI models. We anticipate an extraordinary pace of progress in the next 5 to 10 years.
Team
We are four friends from Stanford. We bonded over our love for entrepreneurship, sports (marathon runners, skiing etc.), and adventure (mountains). We are full time founders and operators and enjoy pre-seed investing to be around other amazing founders.
Rish
co-founder at Spot AI (backed by Bessemer, Redpoint, Scale); ex-Samsara (IoT unicorn); co-founder at Letsintern (India’s largest internship platform); 6x return on angel investments
Andrew
Chief of Staff to Eric Schmidt; ex-U.S. Foreign Service Officer; ex-Special Assistant to Secretary of State John Kerry; co-invests with former co-workers at McKinsey and Google X
Geoff
co-founder at Spoken (YC’22), founder of Cabrio Taxi (exit to Pedicab United); private investor alongside GV, Redpoint, Bessemer, Serena Ventures, Kraft Ventures, NIH; executive coach to CEOs
Marcin
founder Good Morning Ventures (invested early in 20+ companies; $1.5B+ valuation); ex-Marketing Wizards (8-figure exit to Dentsu); co-founding investor at Miesna Paczka; co-founder and fractional CGO at Apex Fractional
$5k for Referring a Company We Invest In
To incentivize ambitious, early-career members of our network to bring us fantastic deals and to reward those individuals for their contributions, The Explorer Fund has created a referral program that entitles those who lead us to a $100k investment to receive $5k for their efforts.
Please send referrals to founders@theexplorer.fund.
While willing to make exceptions, we welcome introductions to companies and generally seek investments that are U.S.-based (or willing to move to the United States) early-stage startup seeking a friends & family, pre-seed, or seed round.
Referral award eligibility:
Refer a company that the Explorer Fund successfully invests $100k into
Be under age 30 at the time of the referral
Awards may be split between multiple individuals
An individual may receive more than one award
Awards will be prorated if the investment made is smaller than $100k
You do not need to be an Explorer Fund official campus scout to qualify
This program may be altered or ended at any time by the partnership
Portfolio
