Why hacker houses are launching their own VC funds
Mission Street is part of a small but growing group of hacker house communities trying to become investors, not just temporary crash pads for founders.
Surabhi Todi and Lisa Shmulyan, former Mission Control roommates, have launched Mission Street Capital, a venture capital fund focused on backing early-stage founders before traditional VCs discover them. The fund recently emerged from stealth mode and raised under $2 million for its initial Fund 0. Hacker houses, such as Mission Control, have given rise to numerous multibillion-dollar startups, including Perplexity and OpenRouter.
In recent years, more hacker houses have sought to establish their own VC funds to invest in very early founders ahead of traditional VCs. This shift aims to capitalize on the rapid growth of AI companies, which can reach significant valuations within months of their launch. Todi and Shmulyan, who are now the fund's investors, stress the importance of investing early in the AI boom due to the potential for staggering valuations.
Their fund's limited partners include researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, as well as investors from Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, and Emergence. Fly.io, a cloud computing startup, serves as the anchor investor. Mission Street Capital is part of a growing trend among hacker house communities, aiming to become investors rather than just temporary living spaces for founders.
Competing hacker houses, like AGI House, have also launched their own VC funds to invest in startups from their networks.
Written by urgent.news from Business Insider's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
