Charles Hudson likes to say, “You’re not a real venture fund until Fund I is closed.”

I never understood what he meant by that… until now.

In 2022 before we’d made our first investment, a small number of you backed us from inception.

I will forever be grateful to those true believers who gave us a shot when all we had was an idea and a question we couldn’t shake.

Would listeners invest with us in the companies featured on The Pitch?

We raised enough capital to make our first investments: first Tether, then Lotus, Gemist & Bevz. Each new investment brought an influx of new LPs into the fund.

Most of you invested after hearing companies like Nectir, geCko Materials, and Future Money. And that’s all The Pitch Fund was, just a collection of companies worth investing in.

Well… now that we have 42 companies in Fund I, this thing is starting to take on a life of its own. It’s still a collection of companies, yes. But being a company in The Pitch Fund actually means something now.

It’s something our founders are proud of! And they brag about it publicly alongside firms like Long Journey, Draper, Precursor and Hustle Fund.

I don’t say this from a place of pride, I say this because I’m still in awe that we GET to invest in these founders. Founders with passion, resilience, grit, conviction and gusto to change the world.

So the fact that The Pitch Fund is starting to mean something to other people, I think means we’re a real fund now!

And as you’ll see below, there’s a lot to be excited about.

Welcome to Volume I of our monthly newsletter for LPs!

~ Josh

We’re hosting events in Austin and NYC to meet with existing and potential LPs for Fund II. 

We’d love to see you there!

Season 14 is underway! Check out the latest additions to Fund I.

We invested $150K at 15M post-money valuation

Founder Sarah Lucena built Mappa to decode the hidden signals in your voice—matching people to jobs, teams, and even relationships. Mappa takes the prize as the most competitive round we’ve earned allocation in and the first check written before the show. Then Sarah came on The Pitch with the highest ARR we’ve had on the show, $3.5M.

$180K at 9M post-money cap

Brad and David walked into The Pitch disguised as caterers...and walked out with a room full of believers. Their gluten-free bagels wowed investors in a blind taste test and landed checks from all four VCs in the room.

$50K at 5M post-money cap

Antonio used an Apple Watch to improve his physical health. But he couldn't find a wearable to help him in the same way with his mental health. So he built Awear, an ear cuff that monitors your brain and coaches you through stress in real time. Antonio has over 300 patents issued to his name and will launch AWEAR on Kickstarter in 2026.

$50K at 5M post-money cap

Ariel Puga spent four years staying late to call security guards to get past the gatekeepers and close enterprise deals. That same grit built Finnecto, a procurement platform that's landed 20 enterprise clients across four LATAM countries in six months.

Nectir announced a historic 5-year contract with the California Community Colleges System, bringing their FERPA-compliant AI to 2.1 million students across 116 campuses. This marks one of the largest AI implementations in the U.S.

The massive contract is a boon for the company, helping to cement their position as the best–in-class AI for higher education. But it’s also a big win for our fund, we expect Nectir will raise their series A in the coming months.

🎧 Listen to episode #127 Nectir AI: The Classroom of the Future

Lotus is one of TIME’s best inventions of 2025. Lotus’s mission has always been to design technology for those often forgotten: older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities. That focus on accessibility has yielded a product that’s better for everyone.

🎧 Listen to episode #117 Lotus Ring: Hardware Hail Mary

Four portfolio companies representing The Pitch Fund took the stage at one of the industry's most competitive events: Mappa, geCKo Materials (back for round two), AWEAR, and Vital Audio.

Gnara officially opened a popup on one of Colorado’s most iconic streets, so if you find yourself in Boulder in the next few months. Swing on by 939 Pearl Street, Boulder, CO

🎧 Listen to episode #137 Gnara: Disrupting Your Pants

By Peter Liu, venture partner at The Pitch Fund

Last week was a whirlwind of back-to-back speaking panels, founder chats, and late-night poker. That’s San Francisco Tech Week for you (or just another day in SF). With literally hundreds of events over the week and such a flurry of activity, everything starts to blur.

Startups face a similar cacophony. It’s become so easy to code and ship product with genAI tools that pretty much anyone can build now—even my six-year-old is vibe coding, and it’s probably only a matter of time before he drops out of kindergarten to become a founder. ;)

With such low barriers to building, and so many new founders flooding in, how does a startup rise above the noise?

Distribution. Distribution is often the make-or-break factor for startups—not product. A founder can build an incredible solution, but if she can’t get it into customers’ hands efficiently and at scale, it doesn’t matter. Strong distribution channels, whether through direct sales, partnerships, or podcasts (isn’t there a podcast with 600k subscribers where founders pitch VCs?…), create defensibility and accelerate growth. In such competitive markets, the startup that masters distribution usually has the edge on the other with a marginally better product.

For a deeper dive, check out Andrew Chen’s nuanced piece, Dual Theories of Distribution and Product.

Or as Erica Wenger succinctly puts it:

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the first edition of our monthly newsletter for LPs. If you’d like to partner with us in Fund II, we’d love to hear from you! Just hit reply on this email.

Best,
Josh & Lisa