Sarah Smith, founder and managing associate of the eponymous Sarah Smith Fund, introduced Thursday the ultimate closing of a $16 million Fund I.
Smith launched her fund in 2022 after spending seven years as an investor with Bain Capital Ventures and is a solo GP. She stated she’s “surprised” by what AI can unlock for corporations like hers, solo and subsequent era. “I can’t think about doing enterprise another manner now,” she stated. “Whereas I consider firm constructing nonetheless requires a workforce effort, I consider early-stage investing is finest accomplished solo.”
She appreciates how she will make quick choices that don’t require committee approval. She’s additionally taken to utilizing AI to assist her all through this journey.
“Each day I’m dreaming of extra methods to assist my founders, combining my expertise and community with AI,” she stated.
“For instance, simply final week, I led a values articulation challenge for certainly one of my founders,” Smith continued. “It took me two to a few hours of time when it beforehand would have taken 20. When you might have an AI-native agency that may ship 10x worth in 1/10 of the time, you may scale up a big portfolio with only one individual.”
She stated she beforehand had a $3 million rolling fund and spent a yr elevating this Fund I. Fund I hopes to spend money on 50 firms and has already backed 17, with the typical examine dimension standing at $250,000. Restricted companions embrace Pear VC, Ulu Ventures, and Verdis Funding Administration.
Fund I focuses primarily on startups within the Stanford ecosystem (Smith is an alumnus of the college). She has analysis there, too, to again up her focus.
“It has produced extra unicorns and exit worth than another college on this planet,” she stated, citing the analysis accomplished by Ilya Strebulaev that reveals that 11% of unicorn founders have an affiliation with Stanford. “Whereas a lot of the legacy Sand Hill corporations spend most of their time up in SF, 45 minutes north, I’m doubling down on Stanford campus.”