8VC

About

8VC is a venture capital firm founded in 2015 by Joe Lonsdale, Drew Oetting, Alex Kolicich, and Jake Medwell ¹². The firm was originally headquartered in San Francisco; in November 2020, Lonsdale relocated the headquarters to Austin, Texas, where the firm now maintains its primary office alongside additional offices in San Francisco and New York ²³.

Joe Lonsdale, the firm’s Managing Partner, co-founded Palantir Technologies, Addepar, and OpenGov prior to establishing 8VC ³. The firm and its predecessor funds manage total committed capital exceeding $6 billion ⁴. In March 2023, 8VC announced Fund V with $880 million in new capital, bringing total committed capital past the $6 billion mark ⁴. In January 2025, the firm began raising Fund VI, securing $998 million in limited partner capital with a focus on supply chain, logistics, and government technology ⁵⁶.

As of March 2026, 8VC has invested in 360 companies over 11 years, with an average of 30 new investments annually over the past decade ⁷. The firm’s portfolio has produced 35 unicorns, 16 IPOs, and 39 acquisitions ⁷.

8VC operates a distinctive “Build” program that dedicates 25-30% of capital to co-founding startups, assembling teams to tackle problems in healthcare, defense, logistics, finance, and biosciences ⁴⁸. Notable companies created through this program include National Resilience (co-founded by Drew Oetting) ¹.

Stated Thesis

8VC’s publicly stated mission is: “The world is broken. Let’s fix it” ⁴. The firm frames entrepreneurship as addressing systemic dysfunction in critical industries, drawing on historical parallels to American frontier innovation ⁴.

The firm publicly focuses on six core areas ⁴: 1. AI applications and services 2. Genomic engineering and life sciences 3. Advanced manufacturing 4. Healthcare innovation 5. Defense and security 6. Logistics and finance

Jake Medwell has described the firm’s approach: “We don’t just invest and take a backseat. We work with our portfolio companies and spend meaningful time integrating them with the best partners and people for success on all sides” ⁵.

8VC emphasizes its network of industry partners, including Prologis, Ryder, NFI, Penske, Lineage, and Daimler in the logistics sector ⁵. The firm also retains industry advisers such as Chris Sultemeier (former Walmart Transportation President/CEO) and Alan Gershenhorn (former UPS EVP) ⁵.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 8VC’s verified portfolio and public data:

Stage distribution: Primarily seed and Series A. Tracxn data shows 108 investments at seed stage (average round size $7.95M), 127 at Series A ($22.8M average), and 44 at Series B ($73.1M average) ⁷. The firm’s model skews toward earlier stages, consistent with the Build program’s company-creation approach.

Sector focus: 8VC has a distinctive “hard tech” and government/defense orientation relative to other venture firms. Key sectors include defense technology (Anduril), logistics and supply chain (Flexport, project44, Deliverr), healthcare and life sciences (Guardant Health, Oscar, Orca Bio), enterprise software, fintech, and transportation (Joby Aviation, The Boring Company) ³⁵⁷.

Geographic concentration: Headquartered in Austin, TX, with significant Bay Area and East Coast portfolio presence. The Austin move in 2020 signaled an investment orientation toward companies building outside traditional Silicon Valley ².

Build program as differentiator: The co-founding model (25-30% of capital) means 8VC is often the earliest investor with deep operational involvement from day one ⁴⁸. This is atypical for a multi-billion-dollar venture firm.

Political and policy dimension: Lonsdale co-founded the Cicero Institute, a nonpartisan policy organization that has passed 175 bills across nearly 30 states ³. The firm’s “American Dynamism”-style investments in defense, government software, and infrastructure have an ideological component beyond pure financial returns.

Co-investor patterns: Frequently co-invests with Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz (American Dynamism), and defense-focused investors.

Notable exits: Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Deliverr (acquired by Shopify for $2.1B), OpenGov (sold for $1.8B), RelateIQ, Baton (acquired by Ryder) ³⁵.

Portfolio

This table represents a fraction of 8VC’s 360 total investments ⁷.

In Their Own Words

“The world is broken. Let’s fix it.” — 8VC mission statement, firm website ⁴

“We don’t just invest and take a backseat. We work with our portfolio companies and spend meaningful time integrating them with the best partners and people for success on all sides.” — Jake Medwell, Co-Founder & Partner, FreightWaves interview, 2025 ⁵

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found.

Sources