Afore Capital

What they do

Afore Capital was founded in 2016 by Gaurav Jain and Anamitra Banerji to institutionalize "pre-seed" investing at a time when the category was still nascent. They saw a gap in the market as traditional seed funds began writing larger checks and requiring more traction, leaving the earliest "pre-traction, pre-everything" founders underfunded. The firm positions itself as a founder's first institutional investor, bringing deep product experience from the founders' time as early product managers at Android and Twitter. Afore has a reputation for being hands-on, acting as a "SWAT team" for its portfolio companies and making investment decisions quickly.

What they look for

Afore's thesis is to be the first institutional check for product-oriented founders at the earliest stage of their journey, often pre-product, pre-traction, and pre-revenue. They invest with high conviction in founders who have non-obvious insights and infectious ambitions. They are "risk-takers, not risk-mitigators" and focus on what can go right with an idea, rather than what can go wrong. The firm believes the pre-seed stage is the optimal moment to invest and that their model helps founders "skip the seed round" and go straight to a Series A.

Stage

Pre-seed

Sectors

SaaS, AI, Fintech, Healthcare, Consumer, Deeptech

Based

San Francisco, US