Element 14 Capital Fund I

We are multi-time founders and know what it takes to build and scale a successful business.

We back founders building tangible products in vertical AI, AI infrastructure, and revenue-driven SaaS.

We write follower checks, make fast decisions, and provide pro-rata support.

Element 14 Capital is launching Fund I to bring our valuable dealflow to investors, and jump-start the next generation of great companies.

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Who we are

Char Kwon

Operator-turned-investor with early bets in SpaceX and Anthropic. Scaled Turing from 0→unicorn in 2.5 years. Led product enabling OpenAI code-generation work; trained LLMs for top labs. CEO/co-founder, Fastrak AI ($0→$750k ARR in 4 months). 20% seed-to-Series-A hit rate.

Jake Schwartz

Four-time founder with one acquisition and two IPOs. Ex-Apple. YC '12 company acquired by Life360. Scaled engineering at Life360 to IPO and nine-figure ARR. Angel investor since 2017.

Investment thesis

We back B2B and B2C founders enabling industries move faster and do more. Our focus areas represent the application and infrastructure layers of AI transformation.

Vertical AI

AI meets untouched industries. We back domain experts applying AI to medicine, agriculture, finance, manufacturing, and other verticals where founder expertise creates defensibility. Less competitive, more opportunity.

AI Infrastructure

Pickaxes for AI gold miners. We invest in evals, inference optimization, training infrastructure, and developer tools essential to the AI agent future. High leverage on trillion-dollar infrastructure investments.

Energy & Infrastructure

Power for the AI future. As businesses monetize AI intelligence gains, power demands will surge. We're building dealflow in energy cost reduction and watts-per-token efficiency improvements.

What we do for founders

We write first checks, make customer introductions, and serve as a confidential sounding board.

We believe in getting you the support you need, and then staying out of your way so you can focus on building your business.

Our superpowers: Building and scaling high-performing teams; deep engineering expertise; GTM, finance, and operations. We encourage you to use us as a resource in good times and challenging times.

Selected outcomes

Phamily (pre-seed → $10M ARR)
Arketa (pre-seed → $5M ARR)
Vellum AI (pre-seed → $3M ARR Series A)
Zaymo (from intern to $1.1M ARR)
CrowdVolt (pre-seed to $19M GTV)
AtlasGrid (invested before Garry Tan)

For LPs

Early access before YC and Tier-1 VCs, deep product and technical diligence, and community deal flow. We are committed to transparency and providing continued access to top-quality tech startups.

We provide quarterly updates and ad-hoc communication to LPs on portfolio companies. Additionally, we look forward to partnering with our high-power LP network to help our companies grow.

Invest with us

Interested in learning more about Fund I? Get in touch.