SOSV SF

This is Where the Bold Come to Build

The Leaders

We Are Hands On

SOSV SF’s General Partners Po Bronson, Pae Wu and Mohan Iyer lead an expert team with a proven track record: SOSV SF’s companies have raised over $3 billion, have built factories over 400,000 square feet in size, and generated revenues in the tens of millions. We know how to do this. To build a portfolio this size, it’s meant supporting 100+ Series A’s, B’s, and C’s. That network is brought to bear on every new startup we fund.

Why Choose SF?

57% of Global Capital Deploys Here

Silicon Valley dominates venture capital. Startups in this small region of just 8 million people pull in 57% of all dollars deployed. The entire rest of the world splits 43%. We recommend to founders that, no matter where they come from, and no matter where they might build their future factories and supply chains, they anchor here.

Our 25,000 square foot facility has 5 lab areas – the main BSL1 lab, two BSL2 suites, an Analytical Chemistry lab, a Food Production lab, and a general-purpose Production Suite for scaled systems. Our offices offer lovely views of the San Francisco Bay ship traffic. We are located in the giant American Industrial Center a few blocks south of UCSF and the Chase Center. We are on a CalTrain stop and the T muni line.

We don’t require you to be here full time. Our founders have come from 40 countries. After we first invest, we do want you to be here in person for at least two week-long bootcamps, a few months apart. We want you to get to know investors here. You will always have an office here you can use.

Your First Investor Matters

Your VC Is a Critical Part of Your Team

The most common mistake founders make is that they optimize for valuation, rather than value creation. Two stacks of $500,000 are equivalent, but the two investors behind each stack are never of equal value. We specialize in being the hardest-working investor on your cap table. During those first six months of building your startup, no investor creates more real value than us.

We don’t spray and pray. Unlike most investors, we invest our most precious asset – our human capital – alongside our financial capital. Speed is a startups’ best weapon and our goal is simple: accelerate your company. We help you move faster by opening doors to customers and investors, supporting fundraising, and advising on the hundreds of small, but critical decisions that determine whether a startup takes off. Every company is supported by a dedicated team of 3–4 investors, including General Partners and Partners with experience in your sector. We meet with you weekly for focused, hands-on collaboration in person or over Zoom. Let us in, and let us help.

2014

Founded

UP TO
$550k

Initial funding

223

Alums

Now accepting applications

(By the way, we’re reviewing applications on a rolling basis)

RECENT COMPANIES

APPLY

The Team

Our team focuses on delivering services to your startup week in, week out. These are going to go way beyond services you already know you need, and will include dimensions you’ve never considered. We will assist you comprehensively and consistently. The clearest proof? Experienced second- and third-time founders choose to build with us time and time again.

We have built a multidisciplinary team with 360° expertise across technological domains, everything from semiconductors to AI to synbio, chemistry, and drug development. This is hard-won experience building mature companies, and a network of trusted relationships in every market sector and geography.

Alex Kopelyan

Westley Dang

Hugh Bowen

Sierra Brooks

Philipp Sander

Catherine Seo

Our Origin

First-of-a-Kind DNA

SOSV SF is the birthplace of the legendary accelerator, IndieBio. Launched in 2015, IndieBio was the first venture-backed biotech accelerator in Silicon Valley with labs on site for scientists. IndieBio took the world by storm, entrusting a generation of post-docs to become startup founders. Today, SOSV SF retains this “first of a kind” DNA. As an investing team, we are dedicated to funding highly technical founders with the creativity and fortitude to break from conventional wisdom and take original approaches to solving the world’s problems.

Over time, we’ve learned a few things that guide us. One is that we do not index on only a certain archetype of founder. We have seen very heterogeneous founders create enormous value. We will take risks – we will run the experiment. We built a fund model that doesn’t avoid inherent risk, it reduces the dollar cost of that risk. This allows us to back startups that others won’t.

What We Invest In

We Excel at Hard Stuff

Tired of trying to explain what you do to investors? Not with us. We do daring. We do frontier. Where other investors see stacked risk, we see potential to leap past competitors. There’s no market we won’t enter. Some of our portfolio companies by sector:

Physical AI: Logos, Ten63, Avalo, Augment, General Sense, FloVision, Wayfinder, QuantumCyte, Everbloom, Proteinea, NotCo, Vertical Oceans, Melio, Calyx
Industrial: Tidal Vision, Transition Metal Solutions, Aqualith, Oxyle, Zymochem, Disperse, Ozone Bio, Ceal Minerals, Via Fuels, Mira Bio, SpiralWave, Carbonade
Next Gen Biomanufacturing: Prolific Machines, Stämm, Fermeate, Capra, Cauldron
On Farm: Beeflow, Avalo, Hoofprint Biome, Puna Bio, California Organic, Farm Minerals, Gilly, Phytogenesis
Therapeutics: Laguna Bio, Rybodyn, Prellis, Synthex, Tipping Point, Wayfinder, OncoPrecision, Gatehouse
Consumer Health: OneSkin, Metabolize, RAWGA, Antarka, Geltor, Mimio
Healthcare: Qidni, Proton Intel, Metabolic Psychiatry, Ria Health, Cellens, Melio, CellCo, QuantumCyte
Foodtech: Voyage, FloUV, Vertical Oceans, Biolumen, California Cultured, NotCo, Michroma, Upside Foods
Exits: Mendel.ai, Aluna, CASPR, Jungla, Circularis, MemBio, Convalesce

How to Apply