Afore Capital

Afore Capital is a San Francisco, California-based U.S. venture capital firm founded in 2016 and positioned as the largest dedicated pre-seed-stage specialist venture capital firm globally, co-founded by Managing Partners Gaurav Jain (formerly Principal at Founder Collective, where he sourced seed investments in Cruise, Firebase, and Airtable; Harvard Business School; University of Waterloo) and Anamitra Banerji (former Twitter first product manager for advertising / monetisation). The firm invests exclusively at the pre-seed stage into product-oriented founders building software companies at ''day zero'' of their journey, often issuing term sheets with just the founder's name before a company entity is formed, and focuses on AI, fintech, health, SaaS, and developer-tools sectors. Sweet-spot check sizes are USD 1 to 2 million with a USD 500,000 to USD 3 million range; Afore typically leads the founder's first institutional round. The firm has raised four flagship funds totalling approximately USD 500 million in AUM (Fund I, Fund II, Fund III at USD 150 million in 2022, and Fund IV at USD 185 million in 2025), with a 200-company portfolio valued collectively over USD 13.5 billion as of early 2025 and Fund I having already returned approximately 1x (USD 47 million) to LPs. Afore operates a distinctive Founder-in-Residence (FIR) program (including a university track) for 5 to 8 founders per cohort. Notable portfolio companies include Modern Health, BenchSci, Neo Financial, New Lantern, and Hightouch.