Primary Ventures has closed a $625 million Fund V focused on seed investing nationwide, which is a sizable fund for a firm that focuses solely on early-stage investing. It perhaps showcases how the size of early-stage rounds has dramatically increased in the age of AI.
Ben Sun, a co-founder and general partner at Primary Ventures, told TechCrunch the average check size for this fund will range from $5 million to $10 million, and he hopes the firm will invest in 40 to 50 companies over the course of three years. He said the fund will also go as early as pre-seed.
The fund will also continue to spread its investments nationwide. Primary is one of New York’s most well-known venture firms, and at one point, most of its investments were focused in the Big Apple. Sun said the location thesis has changed.
The firm, which overall focuses on early-stage investing, has now done deals in SF, Chicago, Seattle, Virginia, and D.C. “The talent, the founder, and the startups are happening everywhere,” he said. “The potential outcomes are so much bigger than they’ve ever been.”
He sees seed investing as headed toward its own asset class, especially as the quality of talent and their startups continue to rise, paired with tech’s current transformation. Firms are competing, after all, to find the hottest deals. “I think [a fund of this size] allows you to go in and compete and bring more resources to the table to work with the best founders and opportunities.”
Sequoia also recently raised a $200 million seed fund, as did Uncork Capital, which announced a $225 million seed fund earlier last year.
Though Primary calls itself a generalist, Sun said the firm has sector specialists, each with their own focus. He likes consumer, but also has investors focused on vertical AI, fintech, healthcare, enterprise, cybersecurity, and infrastructure. “We pretty much cover probably 80% or 90% of the seed sector activities out there.”
Fund V has already invested in three companies. Primary previously raised $60 million in Fund I when it launched in 2015, followed by $100 million in Fund II and $150 million in Fund III.
It raised a $275 million fund and an additional $163 million for an opportunity fund. Some of its investments include the AI chip company Etched, the risk management platform Alloy, the women’s networking hub Chief, and the AI marketplace Dandelion Health. It has $1.65 billion in assets under management.
This piece was updated to add SF as one of the firm’s markets.