A*

About

A (pronounced “A-Star”) is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Kevin Hartz, Bennett Siegel, and Gautam Gupta ¹². The firm is headquartered at 900 Kearny St., San Francisco, CA, with a presence in Boston ¹³. The firm’s name is a reference to the A search algorithm in computer science ⁴.

Kevin Hartz co-founded Xoom (acquired by PayPal in 2015 for $1.1 billion) and Eventbrite (IPO 2018), and is a prolific angel investor who made early bets on PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, Palantir, SpaceX, Ramp, Trulia, and Square ⁵⁶⁷. Bennett Siegel was formerly a partner at Coatue Management, where he backed Peloton, Instacart, and DoorDash, after earlier stints at Boston Consulting Group and Altamont Capital Partners ⁴⁸. Gautam Gupta founded NatureBox (raised approximately $70M before acquisition), served as Head of Finance at Uber (2013–2017, growing the company from 200 to 13,000 employees), and was COO/CFO at Opendoor (2017–2020) ⁹¹⁰¹¹.

Fund I was backed by notable founders and operators including Max Levchin, David Sacks, Peter Thiel, and Tony Xu (co-founder/CEO of DoorDash) ²⁴. Fund II ($315 million, closed June 2024) was raised exclusively from institutional LPs and was oversubscribed ²⁴. The firm has made approximately 40 investments as of 2025 ¹².

In 2024, Hartz also co-founded Sauron, a home security startup using autonomous vehicle perception technology, with Jack Abraham ¹³.

Stated Thesis

A* publicly describes its mission as “Guiding Outliers From Idea To IPO” ¹. The firm positions itself as shifting “from transactional capital to meaningful partnerships” and operates on three stated principles: conviction-led investing (“We invest first. With unwavering conviction”), relentless execution (“We are relentless. Just like our founders”), and founder-centricity (“We work together. To shape a better future”) ¹.

Bennett Siegel has stated: “We found our product market fit is really at the seed and inception stage, partnering with founders on zero to one while continuing to back the breakouts in our portfolio” and added “That’s where we have been the most successful” ².

The firm describes its strategy as leading seed rounds, doubling down at Series A, and making select new investments at Series B ²⁴. A* also incubates companies from scratch, making it an unusually operator-heavy founding team for an early-stage fund ⁴.

Kevin Hartz has described his broader investment philosophy: “Well, any enduring business is really exciting to me. I’m taking the same method of investing, of finding great teams, finding large markets in finding business edge. I tend to like higher margin businesses. I tend to, of course, to like fast growth businesses” ¹⁴.

More recently, Hartz has focused on backing very young founders, with over 20% of Fund II invested in teenage founders. He has noted: “There’s this group…that just knows what the world is going to look like in five and ten years” ¹⁵. He has also said: “You find these really bright kids who are just very bored in school” ¹⁶.

On the broader market, Hartz has declared: “We are in an AI bubble and I would call it the mother of all bubbles” while simultaneously maintaining “We’re still in the very, very, very early stages” of AI development ¹⁵.

Inferred Thesis

Based on A’s verified portfolio of 22 confirmed A fund investments (excluding pre-formation personal angel investments marked with asterisks on their website):

Stage distribution: A*’s primary entry point is seed, with follow-on into Series A and Series B. The TechCrunch reporting confirms the firm “backed 35 startups in Fund I” with later-stage names like Ramp, Notion, and Faire entered at Series B or beyond, while seed-led deals include EyeTell, Paraform, Aligned Marketplace, and others ². The firm’s investment range spans $100K to $10M with a sweet spot around $3M ³.

Sector breakdown (based on 22 verified A* fund-era investments): AI/ML: 8 companies (Decagon, EyeTell, Mercor, Sesame, Krea, Multiply, Fifteenth, Landbase) — 36%. Fintech: 3 companies (Ramp, Pomelo, Wrapbook) — 14%. Marketplaces/e-commerce: 3 companies (Faire, Whop, Paraform) — 14%. SaaS/productivity: 2 companies (Notion, Apollo) — 9%. Healthcare: 1 company (Aligned Marketplace) — 5%. Defense/security: 2 companies (Cape, Mach Industries) — 9%. Other (consumer, real estate, etc.): 3 companies — 14%.

AI concentration: The firm has a pronounced and growing tilt toward AI, especially in Fund II. Portfolio companies Decagon (AI customer support, $4.5B valuation), Mercor (AI hiring), Sesame (AI companion), Krea (AI creative tools), Multiply (AI mortgages), and Fifteenth (AI tax) suggest a thesis around applying AI to specific verticals rather than building foundational models.

Founder profile patterns: A* shows a strong preference for repeat founders and founders with elite technical or operational backgrounds. The EyeTell investment (YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley) and the incubation of Sauron exemplify this ¹⁷. The firm’s recent emphasis on teenage founders represents a divergence — backing raw talent without traditional credentials ¹⁵¹⁶.

Geographic concentration: Portfolio is heavily concentrated in San Francisco and the broader Bay Area, consistent with the firm’s SF headquarters ¹³.

Co-investor patterns: Based on verified deals, A* frequently co-invests with SV Angel/Ron Conway (EyeTell), Accel and a16z (Decagon), Maverick Ventures (Aligned Marketplace), and Box Group ¹⁷¹⁸¹⁹.

Notable gap vs. stated thesis: The firm’s website prominently features pre-formation angel investments by Kevin Hartz (Airbnb, PayPal, Pinterest, SpaceX, Uber, DoorDash, etc.) alongside actual fund investments ¹. While these reflect Hartz’s personal track record, they were not A* fund investments. The distinction between personal angel track record and institutional fund investments is important for founders evaluating the firm’s actual deployment history.

Portfolio

A* Fund Investments

Pre-Formation Investments (Kevin Hartz personal angel portfolio)

The following investments were made by Kevin Hartz personally before A* was formed and are marked with asterisks on the firm’s website ¹⁷:

Note: This table represents a partial view of A’s portfolio. The firm’s website lists approximately 60+ companies across both fund and pre-formation investments. Only entries with at least partial source verification are included above. Many fund investments lack publicly confirmed stage and year details.*

In Their Own Words

“We found our product market fit is really at the seed and inception stage, partnering with founders on zero to one while continuing to back the breakouts in our portfolio. That’s where we have been the most successful.” — Bennett Siegel, Co-Founder & General Partner, TechCrunch interview, June 2024 ²

“We are in an AI bubble and I would call it the mother of all bubbles.” — Kevin Hartz, Co-Founder & General Partner, The Split podcast, 2025 ¹⁵

“We’re still in the very, very, very early stages” [of AI development]. — Kevin Hartz, Co-Founder & General Partner, The Split podcast, 2025 ¹⁵

“There’s this group…that just knows what the world is going to look like in five and ten years.” — Kevin Hartz, on teenage founders, The Split podcast, 2025 ¹⁵

“Well, any enduring business is really exciting to me. I’m taking the same method of investing, of finding great teams, finding large markets in finding business edge. I tend to like higher margin businesses. I tend to, of course, to like fast growth businesses.” — Kevin Hartz, Maddyness interview, 2020 ¹⁴

“If you see a VC firm release a white paper or market map saying they are looking for founders building here, I’d suggest not starting a new company in that space.” — Bennett Siegel, Co-Founder & General Partner, Twitter/X ²²

“Everything in the structure of how we do things today is almost identical to long ago.” — Kevin Hartz, The Split podcast, 2025 ¹⁵

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. The firm’s website does not feature founder testimonials, and dedicated searches for portfolio founder quotes about working with A* did not yield verifiable results.

Sources