Root Ventures is a San Francisco-based deep-tech seed venture capital firm run by engineers, for engineers. The firm specializes in leading initial funding rounds for technical founders tackling hard problems in areas such as applied AI, robotics, hardware, developer tools, and climate tech.
Founded —
Type Venture capital 2 Fund IV 2025-11-10 2025-11-10 $190M RaisedUSD190m partnercorroboration; earlierUSD250mtargetnotclose. Exactlegalclosingdayunknown.
Fund III 2022-08-25 2022-08-25 $150M ClosedUSD150mseedpreseed; firmAug23announcement historicalUSD325mAUM distinct.
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$1M $500K – $2M Israel $1M $500K – $2M Los Angeles, California $1M $500K – $2M San Francisco Bay Area $1M $500K – $2M San Francisco Bay Area $1M $500K – $2M San Francisco, California $1M $500K – $2M San Francisco, California — — – — San Mateo, California — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – — — — – —
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$12M 2026-06-09 Volund Manufacturing Root Ventures $12M 2026-06-09 Volund Manufacturing Root Ventures $— 2026-02-18 Vervesemi Root Ventures $— 2026 illoca Bessemer Venture Partners , Root Ventures $7M 2025-04-24 MagicBlock Lightspeed , Delphi Digital , Pivot Investment Partners , Root Ventures , Mechanism Capital , Maven 11 $17M 2024-08-14 Crux Ocm Root Ventures , Gil Dibner $— 2024-04-02 Agora General Catalyst , Human Ventures , Coinbase Ventures , Seed Club Ventures , Dragonfly , Root Ventures $— 2024-03-14 CliqueCustom Airdrop ToolingB2B Root Ventures $— 2024-02-29 TopoLogic Root Ventures $— 2023-11-15 Mamori Labs Root Ventures $1M 2023-09-27 Rollstack Y Combinator , Monte Carlo Capital , UpHonest Capital , Kima Ventures , Root Ventures $— 2023-09-26 Fhenix Root Ventures $— 2023-09-18 Bastion Cherry Ventures , Root Ventures $25M 2023-08-29 Intuition Robotics OurCrowd , Western Technology Investment , Toyota Ventures , Root Ventures , Wave Capital $— 2023-06-08 Argus Systems Root Ventures $20M 2023-05-15 Together Lux Capital , First Round , Root Ventures $— 2023-03-15 Zed Root Ventures $— 2023 Zed Industries Root Ventures $— 2023 Zed Accel , Root Ventures $— 2022-12-15 Blocknative Root Ventures $5M 2022-10-11 Fidu Lightspeed , NFX , Root Ventures , Imaginable Futures $— 2022-10-03 Stellar Pizza Root Ventures $— 2022-06-14 Oma Root Ventures $— 2022-05-18 ChargeLab Root Ventures $5M 2022-04-21 Liquifi Y Combinator , Human Ventures , Alliance DAO , Nascent , Dragonfly , Orange DAO , Root Ventures $40M 2022-02-10 Superconductive CRV , Root Ventures $— 2022-02-08 ApertureData Root Ventures , Work-Bench $40M 2022 Superconductive CRV , Root Ventures $— 2021-12-02 Privacy Dynamics Root Ventures $— 2021-11-10 Daily Root Ventures $60M 2021-10-04 Esper Root Ventures , Avidan Ross $— 2021-07-14 Blocknative Root Ventures $30M 2021-05-20 Esper Root Ventures , Avidan Ross $— 2021-04-13 Meroxa Amplify Partners , Root Ventures $— 2020-12-03 Versatile Bosch Ventures , Root Ventures $— 2020-10-08 Nordsense Root Ventures $6M 2020-09-03 ThruWave Root Ventures $4M 2020-01-31 Daily Freestyle Capital , Root Ventures $— 2019-10-30 Particleio Root Ventures $— 2019-04-08 Nautilus Labs Root Ventures $12M 2019 Wildtype CRV , Root Ventures $— 2019 Crux Ocm Angular Ventures , Root Ventures $34M 2018 Spruce Y Combinator , Real Ventures , Electric Capital , Okta Ventures , Root Ventures , Orange DAO $— Unknown date Flight Science Root Ventures $— Unknown date CORE Biomedicine Root Ventures $— Unknown date Quilter Root Ventures $— Unknown date Particle Root Ventures $— Unknown date Instrumental Root Ventures $15M Unknown date Okteto Y Combinator , Haystack , Two Sigma Ventures , Uncorrelated Ventures , Root Ventures $17M 2024-10-03 Integrated Biosciences Root Ventures $2M 2023-02-06 Latent Technology Root Ventures , Kane Hsieh $— 2023 Latent Technology AlbionVC , Root Ventures $45M 2022-05-10 Dusty Robotics Avidan Ross , Root Ventures $— Unknown date Oma Fertility Root Ventures
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team@apexlogos.ai · 14 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 investment stages
| Fund or metric | Amount and status | Dated supporting evidence and caveat |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Root Ventures IV / Fund 4 | USD 190M raised; latest-known announced fund | [Eric Newcomer report](https://www.newcomer.co/p/exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190 ), 2025-11-10, identifies the fourth fund and capital raised; public excerpt directly accessible, remainder paid. [Lee Edwards announcement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leeredwards_exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190-million-activity-7393784303282757632-pVNo ), undated public indexed post accessed 2026-10-06, explicitly calls it a new USD 190M seed fund. [Chrissy Meyer announcement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrissymeyer_exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190-million-activity-7393782801524879360-NbSw ), likewise, identifies Fund IV and USD 190M. Exact legal final-close date is not independently established. |
| Earlier Fund IV target | USD 250M target, not closed capital | [Dakota fundraising report](https://www.dakota.com/fundraising-news/seed-stage-vc-root-ventures-targets-250m-for-fourth-fund ), 2025-01-14, reports a January 10 SEC filing and no sales yet. Superseded as a fundraising-status indicator by the November USD 190M announcement; do not report USD 250M as the raised amount. |
| Root Ventures III | USD 150M closed seed/pre-seed fund | [Cooley announcement](https://www.cooley.com/news/coverage/2022/2022-08-25-root-ventures-closes-third-fund-at-%24150-million ), 2022-08-25, titled a third-fund close and confirms mandate and amount. [Firm announcement](https://medium.com/root-ventures/root-ventures-fund-iii-ae11386f75bd ), 2022-08-23, corroborates Fund III. |
| Historical firm AUM | USD 325M, as reported in August 2022 | The 2022-08-23 firm announcement gives AUM separately from Fund III. This is historical firm-wide AUM, not a fourth-fund amount or current AUM. No current independently reconciled AUM found. |
| Initial investment check | Usually USD 3–5M; up to USD 5M | [Official homepage](https://root.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, states initial USD 3–5M checks and reserves two-thirds of fund capital. Edwards' Fund 4 post supports up to USD 5M across seed-labelled stages. Check sizes are distinct from fund capital. |
Current strategy: seed and the earliest financing for engineering-led companies, usually leading initial rounds. Pre-seed is supported by the Fund III announcement and named historical transactions. Focus includes robotics, hardware, manufacturing, semiconductors, automation, ML and technical development tools. Follow-on reserves and historical Series A/B/C participation should not be read as a general growth-stage entry mandate. Official root.vc/about/ was search-index accessible with USD 190M and seed/initial-round language, but a fresh direct fetch redirected to the homepage; use the partner announcements and dated Newcomer report for Fund IV identification.
A focused newer-fund search through 2026-10-06 found no verified Fund V announcement. This makes IV latest-known, without claiming exhaustive private fundraising visibility.
Funds recorded in Adex after this review:
| Fund | Disclosed amount | Announcement / filing date |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Fund III | USD 150000000 | 2022-08-25 |
| Fund IV | USD 190000000 | 2025-11-10 | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 15 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiRootVentures / sha256:89fd45974daaabe74629e95db9f233c685e93d3b56fa1e006534b540c484f1bd / 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.
| **Latent Technology** — reinforcement-learning-based character animation from motion-capture data; technical AI for simulation/animation rather than ordinary SaaS | USD 2.1M pre-seed, announced 2023-02-06; Root and Spark Capital co-led, Bitkraft participated. | [Axios reporting](https://www.axios.com/2023/02/06/latent-technology-21-million-generative-ai-video-games ), 2023-02-06; official Root portfolio corroborates the relationship. Do not conflate with the snapshot's separate USD 8M transaction lead. |
Other official portfolio leads worth later round-level review include Wildtype (cultivated seafood), Ruby Robotics (robotic tissue processing/assessment), Particle (IoT), Tortuga AgTech (agricultural robotics), and Seismic (soft robotic clothing). They establish a broad technical portfolio but are not additional verified round claims here. Ordinary developer SaaS entries in the snapshot are not automatically classified as deep tech.
## Neurotech assessment and attribution caveats
**No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked.** Scope checked: exact-ID snapshot, NFX firm/Avidan profiles, current official portfolio, investment releases above and targeted Root Ventures searches for brain, neural, neurotech, EEG and BCI.
- **Integrated Biosciences** is the strongest adjacent lead. Root's description associates its optogenetics/ML platform with neurodegenerative and age-related diseases; its own financing release primarily establishes cellular/synthetic-biology drug discovery. Neuroscience-related indications and optogenetics do not alone establish neural recording, neural interfaces or neuromodulation products. Keep it classified as biotech/neuroscience-adjacent, with the firm investment verified.
- **Quilter/Latent/Adept-style neural-network AI** is not human neurotechnology merely because neural networks are used.
- A search result for a [Bourne Partners transaction newsletter](https://media.bourne-partners.com/PDFDownloads/6.20.22%20NewsletterTransactionTables.pdf ), 2022-06-20, initially appears to associate Root with Brain Scientific. Reading the transaction table shows Brain Scientific on 2022-06-13 with no named investor, while Jazz/Root belong to a separate 2022-06-14 “thread robotics” row. This is not reliable evidence for a Brain Scientific neurotech investment.
- Seismic's assistive soft robotics is mobility technology; it is not verified as a neural interface. No direct neural claims were inferred from assistive applications.
## Conflicts, gaps and concrete Adex review notes
1. **Suspected Robot Ventures contamination:** the snapshot attaches Movement's 2024-04-25 financing to Root. The [Movement company release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/movement-labs-raises-38-million-in-series-a-to-bring-facebooks-move-to-ethereum-302126931.html ), 2024-04-25, names **Robot Ventures**, not Root. Similarly, the [Rakurai company release](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rakurai-raises-3m-seed-round-to-accelerate-development-of-high-throughput-solana-nodes-302395935.html ), 2025-03-11, names **Robot Ventures**, not Root. These citations do not support the saved Root attribution; review those links and other imported crypto transactions individually before using them. Do not infer all crypto records are wrong from these two checks.
2. **Duplicate records:** saved entries include Particle/Particleio, Oma/Oma Fertility, Zed/Zed Industries and two Volund records. Reconcile company identities, round IDs and dates before counting investments or adding research. Do not automatically delete historical entries.
3. **Round amounts mistaken for check sizes:** several saved `amount` fields equal the public whole-round amount, including USD 12M Volund and USD 6.4M ThruWave. The evidence does not establish Root wrote those entire checks. Root allocation is undisclosed.
4. **Priority research updates:** record Fund IV USD 190M with November 2025 raised-status sources; preserve USD 250M only as earlier target history, distinguish historical USD 325M AUM, and refresh check-size sourcing. Add Integrated Biosciences only after a later authorized update/reconciliation. Correct Volund lead attribution on review; do not copy unsupported Quilter Series B attribution.
5. **Identity and people:** root.vc confirms the San Francisco organization. Other similarly named Root/Roots firms exist; geography, website and partner identity matter. NFX founding year/location and personal career dates conflict; no founding date is proposed as verified. The snapshot includes many people with unknown/null roles; a later team audit should use the official team rather than assume current employment. Prior-firm partner investments were not credited to Root here.
6. **Disclosure limits:** no current audited/reconciled AUM, allocation-by-fund, individual transaction check sizes, exact Fund IV legal final-close date, or direct-neurotech track record established. Public portfolio coverage is not exhaustive and announcements do not prove current holdings. Reputable and official sources differ in dates/round precision; retain source-specific announcement dates.
All cited URLs were checked or inspected through public web/search evidence on 2026-10-06; publication dates are supplied where available. Undated official/NFX/partner pages use that access date. This file is research for subsequent Adex review only; no Adex/database changes were made. SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 15 hours ago
Match research 2026-10-06 / GoldiRootVentures / sha256:89fd45974daaabe74629e95db9f233c685e93d3b56fa1e006534b540c484f1bd / 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.
# Root Ventures
- Exact Adex ID: `GoldiRootVentures`
- Canonical Adex URL: https://adex.page/firms/GoldiRootVentures
- Official website: https://root.vc/ (www.root.vc redirects here)
- Research date: 2026-10-06
- Status: complete for requested research fields; material attribution and disclosure limits are below.
Root Ventures is the San Francisco investor focused on technical founders at seed and pre-seed. Its latest-known announced fund is Fund IV, USD 190 million, announced in November 2025. Verified investments span propulsion/manufacturing, millimeter-wave imaging, construction robotics, electronics design and synthetic biology. No verified neurotech investment found in the sources checked. Integrated Biosciences is relevant neuroscience-adjacent drug discovery, but does not establish a direct neural-device track record.
## Starting evidence: Adex and NFX Signal
The exact-ID saved MCP snapshot, `data/research/_sources/GoldiRootVentures.adex.json`, was retrieved 2026-10-06 at 19:29 UTC. It names Root Ventures, links root.vc, describes engineering-led deep-tech seed investing, lists 14 role records and 53 investment-participation records, and has null minimum/maximum/sweet-spot check fields. The description is broadly consistent with official positioning. Starting source links include Goldi.ai and NFX Signal; imported claims are leads rather than independent verification. Representative existing investments include Volund Manufacturing, ThruWave, Particle, Wildtype, Instrumental, Quilter and Oma Fertility. Duplicate company/round identities and crypto investor mismatches require review.
[NFX firm profile](https://signal.nfx.com/firms/root-ventures ), undated, directly read 2026-10-06: describes a seed-stage deep-tech investor, gives a 2013 founding year, and inconsistently displays Los Angeles alongside San Francisco/Bay Area/Israel locations. [Avidan Ross profile](https://signal.nfx.com/investors/avidan-ross ), undated, directly read the same date: founding partner at Root, USD 500,000–2 million range, USD 1 million sweet spot and USD 150 million current fund; includes seed hardware/developer-tools rankings. The direct profile gates investment detail behind sign-in even though search indexing exposed some records. Its employment line says Root 2011–present, another inconsistent founding-year clue. Signal's fund/check data appears historical compared with the current official mandate. Do not import its personal investment history as firm transactions without round-level corroboration.
## Fund size and investment stages
| Fund or metric | Amount and status | Dated supporting evidence and caveat |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Root Ventures IV / Fund 4 | USD 190M raised; latest-known announced fund | [Eric Newcomer report](https://www.newcomer.co/p/exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190 ), 2025-11-10, identifies the fourth fund and capital raised; public excerpt directly accessible, remainder paid. [Lee Edwards announcement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leeredwards_exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190-million-activity-7393784303282757632-pVNo ), undated public indexed post accessed 2026-10-06, explicitly calls it a new USD 190M seed fund. [Chrissy Meyer announcement](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrissymeyer_exclusive-root-ventures-raises-190-million-activity-7393782801524879360-NbSw ), likewise, identifies Fund IV and USD 190M. Exact legal final-close date is not independently established. |
| Earlier Fund IV target | USD 250M target, not closed capital | [Dakota fundraising report](https://www.dakota.com/fundraising-news/seed-stage-vc-root-ventures-targets-250m-for-fourth-fund ), 2025-01-14, reports a January 10 SEC filing and no sales yet. Superseded as a fundraising-status indicator by the November USD 190M announcement; do not report USD 250M as the raised amount. |
| Root Ventures III | USD 150M closed seed/pre-seed fund | [Cooley announcement](https://www.cooley.com/news/coverage/2022/2022-08-25-root-ventures-closes-third-fund-at-%24150-million ), 2022-08-25, titled a third-fund close and confirms mandate and amount. [Firm announcement](https://medium.com/root-ventures/root-ventures-fund-iii-ae11386f75bd ), 2022-08-23, corroborates Fund III. |
| Historical firm AUM | USD 325M, as reported in August 2022 | The 2022-08-23 firm announcement gives AUM separately from Fund III. This is historical firm-wide AUM, not a fourth-fund amount or current AUM. No current independently reconciled AUM found. |
| Initial investment check | Usually USD 3–5M; up to USD 5M | [Official homepage](https://root.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, states initial USD 3–5M checks and reserves two-thirds of fund capital. Edwards' Fund 4 post supports up to USD 5M across seed-labelled stages. Check sizes are distinct from fund capital. |
Current strategy: seed and the earliest financing for engineering-led companies, usually leading initial rounds. Pre-seed is supported by the Fund III announcement and named historical transactions. Focus includes robotics, hardware, manufacturing, semiconductors, automation, ML and technical development tools. Follow-on reserves and historical Series A/B/C participation should not be read as a general growth-stage entry mandate. Official root.vc/about/ was search-index accessible with USD 190M and seed/initial-round language, but a fresh direct fetch redirected to the homepage; use the partner announcements and dated Newcomer report for Fund IV identification.
A focused newer-fund search through 2026-10-06 found no verified Fund V announcement. This makes IV latest-known, without claiming exhaustive private fundraising visibility.
## Named previous deep-tech investments
Amounts below are entire company rounds, not Root's individual allocation. Firm attribution is direct unless explicitly qualified.
| Company and technology rationale | Round, date and attribution | Supporting URLs, publication/access dates |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Volund Manufacturing** — low-cost turbojet propulsion and software-controlled automated manufacturing for unmanned systems; physical engineering and production technology | USD 12M seed, co-led by Root and Squadra; announced 2026-06-09. The saved record's `isLead: false` conflicts with the release. | [Squadra/Volund release](https://newsroom.squadra.vc/volund-manufacturing-secures-12m-in-seed-financing-to-build-mil-spec-propulsion-systems-automated-manufacturing-capabilities/ ), 2026-06-09, directly read; identifies Root, its San Francisco identity and Kane Hsieh. |
| **ThruWave** — 3D millimeter-wave imaging to inspect packaged goods for supply-chain applications; novel sensing hardware | USD 6.4M Series Seed closed, 2020-09-03; Root participant, E14 Fund and Ubiquity leaders. Separate USD 750,000 NSF grant is not venture-round capital. | [Company-issued PRWeb release](https://www.prweb.com/releases/thruwave-raises-6-4m-in-series-seed-funding-round-848129196.html ), 2020-09-03; [official Root portfolio](https://root.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06, corroborates relationship. |
| **Dusty Robotics** — robotic construction layout, linking digital building plans with physical floor marking; autonomous construction hardware | USD 45M Series B announced 2022-05-10, Root returning participant, Scale Venture Partners lead. A follow-on example, not evidence of a Series B entry mandate. | [IRONPROS reporting](https://www.ironpros.com/construction-robotics/article/22908766/dusty-robotics-to-use-45m-in-series-b-funding-to-scale-digital-floorplan-printing ), 2022-06-14, explicitly names Root and its returning status; official Root portfolio also lists Dusty. |
| **Quilter** — physics-based reinforcement learning for printed-circuit-board layout, with CAD kernels and physical simulation; technical EDA automation | Firm portfolio attribution verified. USD 25M Series B announced 2025-10-06, led by Index; that release does **not** name Root, so Root's participation in this specific round remains unverified. | [Quilter company announcement](https://www.quilter.ai/blog/series-b ), originally published 2025-10-06, directly read; [official Root portfolio](https://root.vc/ ), undated, accessed 2026-10-06. Retain the portfolio relationship separately from the snapshot's claimed Series B participation. |
| **Integrated Biosciences** — synthetic biology, optogenetic cellular control and ML for age-related therapeutic discovery; biotechnology platform | USD 17.2M seed closed, announced 2024-10-03; Root participant, Sutter Hill Ventures lead. | [Company announcement](https://integratedbio.com/integrated-biosciences-raises-17-million-to-accelerate-development-of-drugs-targeting-age-related-diseases/ ), 2024-10-03, directly accessible. This named investment is missing from the saved participation list. | SHOW MORE
team@apexlogos.ai · 23 days ago
MATCH 
Esper$60M · 2021-10-04
CRV
Superconductive$40M · 2022-02-10
Wildtype$12M · 2019
Lightspeed
MagicBlock$7M · 2025-04-24
Fidu$5M · 2022-10-11
AlbionVC
Alliance DAO
Liquifi$5M · 2022-04-21
Amplify Partners
Meroxa$— · 2021-04-13
Angular Ventures
Crux Ocm$— · 2019
Bessemer Venture Partners
illoca$— · 2026
Bosch Ventures
Versatile$— · 2020-12-03
Cherry Ventures
Bastion$— · 2023-09-18
Agora$— · 2024-04-02
Spruce$34M · 2018
First Round
Together$20M · 2023-05-15
Daily$4M · 2020-01-31
General Catalyst
Gil Dibner
Rollstack$1M · 2023-09-27
Lux Capital
OurCrowd
Intuition Robotics$25M · 2023-08-29
Okteto$15M · Unknown date
Work-Bench
ApertureData$— · 2022-02-08
