About Fly and how we invest
Who we are and what we do
Fly Ventures is a first-check VC backing founders everyone wants to meet but nobody dares to invest in.
The founders we partner with tend to pursue problems that are technically hard, commercially non-trivial or still largely unmapped. They combine deep insight with the intensity and ambition to build an important company over many years.
That has meant backing embodied AI before it was an established category (Wayve in 2017), AI security before ChatGPT (Lakera in 2022), and AI-driven debt market intelligence when very few investors believed the market was ready (9fin in 2019).
We are not looking for the most polished pitch or any early metrics. We are looking for founders who see something others do not yet see - and who have the ability to make it real.
At a glance
Stage: Pre-seed and Seed
Typical role: First-check investor; lead or co-lead
Geography: Europe and European diaspora founders in the US
Talent profile: Exceptional technical founders
Company stage: Mostly pre-product and pre-revenue
How we meet founders: Primarily through portfolio founders and people we trust
Follow-on investments: Limited; we invest heavily upfront
The founders we back
We look for founders who are abnormally intense. People who will move mountains, iterate fast and stay in the fight for a very long time.
They form their own view of the future. They are often hard to convince and hard to influence.
We care deeply about clarity of speech and thought. That includes how founders express themselves in writing, even in a short email.
They live in the future. They can explain why now, identify the technical or behavioural inflection point behind the opportunity, and paint a future compelling enough that world-class people will take an irrational career risk to join them.
This is not a checklist. But we need to come away believing that this person could build a very large and important company - and that very few people could do what they are setting out to do.
What we invest in
First and foremost, we invest in exceptional humans who lead us into areas we had not thought about before. See our forays into embodied AI with Wayve in 2017 or materials science with Orbital Industries in 2022.
Because of who we are, we almost always look for a computational core in the companies we back.
Our first fund returners - Wayve, 9fin and Metaview - were all core AI bets. We continue to be excited about the infrastructure that makes AI possible, applications that transform complex industries, AI security, robotics and embodied AI, and AI that shapes the physical world.
At the same time, we have always been excited about developer tools, data infrastructure and cybersecurity.
We are particularly drawn to opportunities that do not yet fit neatly into an established category - where the technology is difficult, the path to commercialization is non-trivial or the market is still taking shape.
These are areas of interest, not investment boundaries.
What we want to understand on a first call
On a first call, we want to get to the core of what you are building. These are some of the questions we want to work through together:
What do you understand that most other people do not?
What technical or behavioural inflection point makes now the right time?
Why has this not been built before? What is genuinely difficult about it?
Why are you uniquely positioned to build it?
If it works, what could this company ultimately become?
What are the most important things you still need to prove?
At the stage where we invest, much of the proof does not yet exist. We do not expect false precision. But we do expect clear thinking, intellectual honesty and a strong point of view.
When we invest
We invest from day zero through Seed and always write the first check. Many of the companies we back are at inception, and most are pre-product and pre-revenue.
We do not use revenue or product-market fit as tests of whether a company is ready for investment. But early does not mean vague. We need a non-obvious insight, a clear view of the problem and why now, and a credible starting point for what you plan to build.
Working with Fly
We are quite disillusioned with the value VCs tend to bring - and agree with Vinod Khosla that 70-80% of VCs add negative value to startups.
That makes us careful about promising value-add. But we do believe there is something special about the relationship between founders and their first-check believers. We back founders before proof exists and before the opportunity becomes obvious to everyone else. That creates a relationship that can last for the entire life of the company.
We are as close as founders want us to be. That can mean speaking five times over WhatsApp in a single week, then leaving a team alone for two months while they are in heads-down build mode. We can be highly engaged in a financing, a critical hire or a difficult decision - and completely out of the way when we are not useful.
There is no platform team and no catalogue of services. Founders work directly with the Fly partners who backed them.
We have a particular focus on helping European founders build in Europe and sell in the US. That includes working through US go-to-market questions and helping founders raise follow-on capital from the best US Seed and Series A VCs, many of them highly specialized. Fly portfolio companies have raised more than $3B in follow-on funding. More than 60% have raised a follow-on round from a US or tier 1 European VC.
The relationship changes as the company grows. We mostly do not take board seats, and by Series B we are usually no longer involved in regular governance. But we do not disappear. We want to be the investor a founder can always call - and know will always be there when it matters.
FAQ
Do I need a warm introduction?
A thoughtful introduction helps materially. Most founders we back reach us through portfolio founders and people whose judgment we trust. In many cases, we get to know founders 6-12 months before they seriously consider starting a company.
Does Fly lead rounds?
We lead or co-lead rounds. There are very occasional exceptions.
How technical does the founding team need to be?
We back technical founding teams and almost always look for a computational core. Not every founder needs to be an engineer, but the technical insight and ability must sit within the founding team.
Does Fly back solo or first-time founders?
Yes. We have backed both. We care about exceptional ability, not whether someone has previously founded a company or already assembled a complete founding team.
Does Fly invest in US-based founders?
Yes, typically where there is a European connection.
Does Fly make follow-on investments?
Yes, selectively. Our defining role is as the first-check investor.
We are already raising. Is it too late to meet?
No. Not every investment starts with a long relationship. If you are in a process now, tell us and we will move at the speed of your round. The three stages of our Investment Process are built for exactly that.
Contact
Take a look at our team, identify the partner who is the best fit for what you are building and get connected to them. Ideally, that connection comes through a founder or someone who knows you well.
A short note is enough. Tell us what you are building, what you understand that others do not and why now.
See more
The Fly Ventures term sheet