Audacious Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Nakul Mandan, based in San Francisco. The firm partners with ambitious technology founders at the pre-seed and seed stages, offering hands-on operational support including recruiting and go-to-market assistance.
Founded —
Type Venture capital 2 Fund I 2024-11-14 2024-11-14 — FounderinterviewroundedapproxUSD90mfirstfund2020vintage; exactcommitmentsnotreconciled. HistoricalmanagedapproxUSD250m distinct.
Fund II 2024-04-04 2024-04-04 $150M Secondflagshipfund announcedraised; preseed/seed. LaterSECaffiliateaggregationunverified no151massertion.
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$8M $100K – $25M San Francisco Bay Area — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – —
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$8M 2025-08-19 Convoke Audacious Ventures , Lux Capital $— 2024-07-31 Tezi Audacious Ventures $— 2023-05-31 Vartana Audacious Ventures $43M 2023-02-22 Tome Lightspeed , 8VC , Coatue Management LLC , Greylock Partners , XYZ Venture Capital , Audacious Ventures , Wing Venture Capital $— 2023-02-06 ShiftMed Audacious Ventures $— 2023-01-26 Suppli Audacious Ventures $12M 2023-01-24 Vartana Audacious Ventures , Flex Capital $220M 2022-06-08 Multiverse General Catalyst , Lightspeed , D1 Capital Partners , GV , StepStone Group , Index Ventures , BOND , Audacious Ventures , Kenneth Chenault , Joel Cutler $— 2022 Facet Audacious Ventures $130M 2021-09-28 Multiverse General Catalyst , D1 Capital Partners , GV , Index Ventures , BOND , Lightspeed , Latitude , Audacious Ventures , Kenneth Chenault , Joel Cutler $— 2021-09-07 Orbit Fab Audacious Ventures $— Unknown date Saris AI Audacious Ventures $— Unknown date Quadrillion Audacious Ventures $— Unknown date Maxima Audacious Ventures $— Unknown date DonorAtlas Audacious Ventures $— Unknown date Curious Cardinals Audacious Ventures $11M Unknown date General Legal Y Combinator , Audacious Ventures $2M 2024-02-14 Planette Audacious Ventures $— 2022-08-09 CreatorDao Audacious Ventures
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team@apexlogos.ai · 6 hours ago
Investment-fund research reviewed 2026-10-06. Publicly identified funds, dates, amounts and fundraising status are below. Undisclosed commitments remain unknown; this is not a complete register of private SPVs or parallel entities.
Fund size and stages
| Vehicle / metric | Amount and date | Interpretation and evidence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Second flagship fund / Fund II | USD 150 million; founder announcement 2024-04-04 | Announced as the firm's second fund, rather than an unraised target. Pre-seed and seed mandate. [Nakul Mandan announcement](https://www.nakulmandan.com/blog/2024/audacious-20 ). |
| First fund | Approximately USD 90 million; 2020 vintage, discussed 2024-11-14 | Mandan describes a USD 90 million first fund in his interview. Rounded public figure; precise legal vehicle commitments are not reconciled here. [The Split interview and transcript](https://www.thespl.it/p/recruiting-from-zero-to-one-nakul ). |
| Firm aggregate managed capital | Approximately USD 250 million; interview 2024-11-14 | Historical aggregate statement, separate from Fund II size and not a current audited AUM number. The same interview describes enterprise focus, leading/co-leading seed rounds, with round totals from USD 1 million pre-seed to USD 10 million seed; these are round sizes, not necessarily firm checks. [The Split](https://www.thespl.it/p/recruiting-from-zero-to-one-nakul ). |
| Fund II / affiliate filing | SEC D/A filed 2025-05-30 | Official index identifies Audacious Ventures II, L.P. and Audacious Affiliates II, L.P. The underlying document could not be read through the web tool; avoid asserting a new fund or revised final close from the index alone. [SEC filing index](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2002258/000198941925000002/0001989419-25-000002-index.html ). |
Searches for 2025–2026 successors and Fund III did not locate a verified new flagship announcement. Third-party filing trackers surfaced smaller lettered vehicles and a USD 151 million combined Fund II/affiliate figure, but the legal aggregation was not verified. Thus USD 150 million is **latest-known verified flagship announcement**, not a guarantee that no later vehicle exists. Do not sum parallel affiliates twice or mix SPVs with flagship funds.
The founder's fund announcement supports current entry stages **pre-seed and seed**. Later rounds recorded in Adex and personal partner history do not establish a broad growth-stage initial-investment mandate. The [official homepage](https://www.audacious.co/ ) (undated, accessed 2026-10-06) supports recruiting and scalable sales support as the firm's operating model.
Funds recorded in Adex after this review:
| Fund | Disclosed amount | Announcement / filing date |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fund II | USD 150000000 | 2024-04-04 |
| Fund I | Undisclosed / unverified | 2024-11-14 | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 6 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiAudaciousVentures / sha256:8e5596c5cf0e2a364a0a5d2c15584a04fa04e6c1472d7a5d29b65b935a06dbd3 / part 2 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
- **HEARTio:** Cardiac ECG diagnostics are clinical AI, not neurotechnology. The Adex source itself names **Audacious Capital**, not Audacious Ventures, for the **USD 4.25 million seed financing**. Attribution remains unverified for this exact firm. Healthcare IT Today published 2026-03-27; another syndication is dated 2026-03-16 but embeds “March 16, 2025,” a date conflict. [Healthcare IT Today](https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2026/03/27/translucent-ai-raises-27m-series-a-led-by-gv-heartio-announces-closing-of-4-25-million-financing/ ); [Cardiac Vascular News](https://cardiacvascularnews.com/heartio-announces-closing-of-4-25-million-financing-for-its-ai-algorithm-to-detect-warning-signs-of-heart-attacks/ ).
- **Convoke:** The official Audacious portfolio describes information organization for drug-development and commercial decisions. Biopharma customers and AI branding do not alone demonstrate experimentally validated drug discovery or neurotechnology. Keep it as a verified portfolio company, with deep-tech classification unresolved. [Official portfolio](https://www.audacious.co/portfolio ), accessed 2026-10-06.
- Tezi, Vartana, Tome, ShiftMed, education marketplaces and routine financial/enterprise software are not classified as deep tech merely because they use AI or serve regulated sectors.
## Neurotech
**No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked.** The official portfolio, Signal pages, Adex leads and targeted Audacious brain/neuro/neuroscience searches did not establish a direct neural interface, neural sensing, brain stimulation or other brain-focused technology investment. Reflection's neural networks are general AI; HEARTio concerns the heart and has an investor identity mismatch; Convoke's biopharma workflow software is adjacent to life sciences. This is bounded evidence, not proof that the firm has never invested in neurotechnology.
## Conflicts, missing information and later Adex review
1. Preserve exact ID and firm identity. Investigate Orbit Fab's Audacious Venture Partners and HEARTio's Audacious Capital before retaining those participations as this firm's verified record.
2. Consider adding Planette and Reflection AI as supported portfolio evidence; retain uncertainty about Reflection's round. Planette's USD 2.4 million is a round total, not a firm check.
3. Add the USD 150 million second-fund announcement and pre-seed/seed strategy with 2024-04-04 date. Verify any claimed Fund III and exact Fund II/affiliate aggregation directly from filing documents before replacing this amount.
4. Reconcile rounded Fund I USD 90 million and historical aggregate USD 250 million with legal filings rather than calculating present-day AUM from their sum.
5. Snapshot roles contain both Muzzammil Zaveri and Muzzammil (MZ) Zaveri person IDs; this looks like a possible duplicate, requiring separate identity review. Signal partner career history also mixes current and prior firms.
6. Mandan explicitly distinguishes earlier Lightspeed/Battery investments in his announcement. People.ai, Gainsight, BuildingConnected, 6Sense and Marketo should not be inferred as Audacious-originated deals. Multiverse and WorkOS require round-specific attribution, even where there is later Audacious portfolio evidence.
7. Missing: reliable firm-level check range, current AUM, final close dates for all vehicles, exhaustive transaction history, Reflection round-specific participation and verified neurotech examples. Access limitations: Signal sparse firm rendering; SEC underlying Form D documents unavailable through the web reader; some official URLs returned errors. All undated pages and search checks were accessed **2026-10-06**.
This file is research for later review only. No Adex/database change, MCP Patch or commit was made. SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 6 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiAudaciousVentures / sha256:8e5596c5cf0e2a364a0a5d2c15584a04fa04e6c1472d7a5d29b65b935a06dbd3 / part 1 of 2
Imported completed research. Baseline Adex/Signal statements describe prior state, not independent verification. Retain cited attribution, date, currency and classification caveats.
# Audacious Ventures
- Exact Adex ID: `GoldiAudaciousVentures`
- Canonical Adex URL: https://adex.page/firms/GoldiAudaciousVentures
- Research date: 2026-10-06
- Status: complete research pass; unresolved claims explicitly identified below.
Audacious is the San Francisco venture firm founded by Nakul Mandan in April 2020. Its latest verified flagship announcement located is a **USD 150 million second fund**, announced April 4, 2024, for **pre-seed and seed** investing. Verified research-intensive portfolio examples are **Planette** (scientific climate forecasting) and **Reflection AI** (frontier AI research, with transaction details less certain). Two apparent hardware/medical examples in Adex, **Orbit Fab and HEARTio, carry material investor-name attribution conflicts** and should not be accepted as verified investments of this firm. No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked. [Founder announcement, 2024-04-04](https://www.nakulmandan.com/blog/2024/audacious-20 ); [official portfolio, undated, accessed 2026-10-06](https://www.audacious.co/portfolio ).
## Starting evidence: Adex and NFX Signal
The exact record in `data/research/_sources/GoldiAudaciousVentures.adex.json` was retrieved through read-only Adex MCP Search on 2026-10-06. It describes San Francisco, 2020 founding, pre-seed/seed technology investing, operational recruiting and go-to-market assistance. Check minimum, maximum and sweet spot are null. Its sources include audacious.co, NFX Signal and Goldi. The snapshot has 19 participation records: HEARTio, Convoke, Tezi, Vartana (two), Tome, ShiftMed, Suppli, CreatorDAO, Multiverse (two), Facet, Orbit Fab, General Legal, Curious Cardinals, DonorAtlas, Maxima, Quadrillion and Saris AI. These are research leads, not independently verified transactions. Several `amount` fields repeat total fundraising amounts, which does not establish Audacious's contribution.
[Signal firm page](https://signal.nfx.com/firms/audacious-ventures ), directly read 2026-10-06, supplies the firm name and San Francisco Bay Area location but little usable strategy or fund information in its accessible rendering. [Signal Nakul Mandan profile](https://signal.nfx.com/investors/nakul-mandan ), directly read the same day, lists a USD 100,000–10 million investment range, USD 1 million sweet spot and 31 investments, but labels the current investing position “Kamanu Ventures & Lightspeed Venture Partners Scout” while also listing Audacious founder/partner and Lightspeed roles. Treat this as a mixed personal career profile; do not transfer its check sizes, rankings or previous-firm investments into Audacious's mandate without confirmation.
## Fund size and stages
| Vehicle / metric | Amount and date | Interpretation and evidence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Second flagship fund / Fund II | USD 150 million; founder announcement 2024-04-04 | Announced as the firm's second fund, rather than an unraised target. Pre-seed and seed mandate. [Nakul Mandan announcement](https://www.nakulmandan.com/blog/2024/audacious-20 ). |
| First fund | Approximately USD 90 million; 2020 vintage, discussed 2024-11-14 | Mandan describes a USD 90 million first fund in his interview. Rounded public figure; precise legal vehicle commitments are not reconciled here. [The Split interview and transcript](https://www.thespl.it/p/recruiting-from-zero-to-one-nakul ). |
| Firm aggregate managed capital | Approximately USD 250 million; interview 2024-11-14 | Historical aggregate statement, separate from Fund II size and not a current audited AUM number. The same interview describes enterprise focus, leading/co-leading seed rounds, with round totals from USD 1 million pre-seed to USD 10 million seed; these are round sizes, not necessarily firm checks. [The Split](https://www.thespl.it/p/recruiting-from-zero-to-one-nakul ). |
| Fund II / affiliate filing | SEC D/A filed 2025-05-30 | Official index identifies Audacious Ventures II, L.P. and Audacious Affiliates II, L.P. The underlying document could not be read through the web tool; avoid asserting a new fund or revised final close from the index alone. [SEC filing index](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2002258/000198941925000002/0001989419-25-000002-index.html ). |
Searches for 2025–2026 successors and Fund III did not locate a verified new flagship announcement. Third-party filing trackers surfaced smaller lettered vehicles and a USD 151 million combined Fund II/affiliate figure, but the legal aggregation was not verified. Thus USD 150 million is **latest-known verified flagship announcement**, not a guarantee that no later vehicle exists. Do not sum parallel affiliates twice or mix SPVs with flagship funds.
The founder's fund announcement supports current entry stages **pre-seed and seed**. Later rounds recorded in Adex and personal partner history do not establish a broad growth-stage initial-investment mandate. The [official homepage](https://www.audacious.co/ ) (undated, accessed 2026-10-06) supports recruiting and scalable sales support as the firm's operating model.
## Named previous deep-tech investments
| Company | Technology and classification | Attribution, round and dates | Supporting evidence |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Planette** | AI-enhanced climate and environmental forecasting. Scientific modeling, multivariate representations and forecast validation make this a defensible computational deep-tech example, rather than merely a climate dashboard. | Official Audacious portfolio names Planette. GeekWire reports Audacious **led USD 2.4 million** financing on **2024-02-14**, joined by Jetstream, Dash Fund and Graham & Walker. The article does not specify a formal stage; databases alternatively call it pre-seed/seed. Audacious check size undisclosed. | [Audacious portfolio](https://www.audacious.co/portfolio ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06; [GeekWire, 2024-02-14](https://www.geekwire.com/2024/techstars-seattle-startup-planette-raises-2-4m-for-ai-boosted-weather-and-climate-prediction-tech/ ); [official Planette site](https://www.planette.ai/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. |
| **Reflection AI** | Research into highly capable autonomous AI systems; a frontier-model/autonomy research example. Classification is an inference about technical ambition, not evidence of hardware or a neuroscience investment. | Named on Audacious's official portfolio, establishing firm attribution. Exact Audacious round, date, amount and lead status are not publicly verified in this pass. Public launch reporting describes **USD 130 million across USD 25 million seed and USD 105 million Series A**, announced March 2025; it does not prove which round Audacious joined. | [Audacious portfolio](https://www.audacious.co/portfolio ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06; [Reflection official site](https://www.reflection.ai/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06; [PYMNTS, 2025-03-07](https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2025/reflection-ai-raises-130-million-to-build-autonomous-coding-systems/ ). |
Planette has a **2025 NASA Phase I SBIR award of USD 149,720** for QubitCast, combining scientific forecasting with quantum-inspired optimization, wavelet transforms and tensor decomposition. This independently supports the research-intensive technology assessment; it is government project funding, not an Audacious round or quantum-computing hardware investment. The award record lists start 2025-08-21. [Official SBIR award record](https://www.sbir.gov/awards/220501 ), accessed 2026-10-06.
### Baseline candidates requiring correction or caution
- **Orbit Fab:** In-space fueling ports, depots and servicing are genuine space hardware deep tech. However, its **official 2021-09-07 announcement** names **Audacious Venture Partners**, not Audacious Ventures, in an **over USD 10 million** round led by Asymmetry Ventures. A public statement by Orbit Fab's founder identifies that participant with **Mike Siegel**, which strengthens the mismatch with Mandan's firm. Do not count it as a verified investment of `GoldiAudaciousVentures` without legal identity evidence. [Orbit Fab announcement](https://www.orbitfab.com/news/lm-ng-investment/ ); [founder comment visible in SpaceFund partner's post, 2021-era, accessed 2026-10-06](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meagan_wsj-news-exclusive-big-aerospace-contractors-activity-6841165221055262720-eaWy ). SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 22 days ago
MATCH 
Lightspeed
Tome$43M · 2023-02-22
Multiverse$220M · 2022-06-08
General Catalyst
GV
Joel Cutler
Kenneth Chenault
Flex Capital
Vartana$12M · 2023-01-24
Lux Capital
Convoke$8M · 2025-08-19
Wing Venture Capital
Y Combinator
General Legal$11M · Unknown date
