The best seed VCs of 2022 — based on data
Ulu Ventures; MaC Venture Capital; Vitalize; Initialized Capital; Nurx; Kite VC; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
- Insider just published its second annual Seed 100 and Seed 25 lists of the best seed VCs.
- The lists not only celebrate past wins but also use a statistical model to predict ongoing success.
- These lists can help founders find VCs and help VCs find top dealmakers to add to their networks.
Insider's second annual Seed 100 list once again names the best seed-stage investors in the US.
Read: The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors
And our second annual Seed 25 list, which honors the rising number of women in seed-stage investing, names the best female investors.
Read: The Seed 25: The best female early-stage investors
Based on data
What makes these rankings different from other best-VCs lists is that they're based on data. And they're not just rearview analyses that celebrate past success. They use a statistical model designed to predict, with high confidence, future success.
That makes the Seed 100 and Seed 25 ideal tools for founders looking for successful early-stage investors to bring on as partners, as well as for other VCs and angel investors searching for top dealmakers to include in their networks.
In fact, those are the exact reasons that the data-driven VC firm Tribe Capital, the creator of the model, spent three years building and fine-tuning it. Tribe's data selected and ranked these top investors out of a field of more than 1,400 people using 25 attributes.
Read: How Tribe Capital selected and ranked Insider's Seed 100 and Seed 25 lists of the best seed VCs
Newcomers and rising stars
This year's list includes 37 newcomers, including Ian Rountree, No. 6 on the Seed 100, who worked in the nonprofit world until he realized, he told us, that nothing changes the world faster than "solving problems with cash flow."
Another newcomer is Miriam Rivera, No. 1 on the Seed 25, who built her firm by backing female founders and founders of color, filling the skies with unicorns as she did. "People have seen that investing in diverse people is profitable," she said.
Read: How top VC Miriam Rivera turned bets on underrepresented founders into multibillion-dollar wins
Speaking of unicorns, Aileen Lee, No. 2 on the Seed 25, coined the term. But Lee told us that she was most proud of mentoring founders: "Sticking by people through hard times is actually one of the things that I feel really proud about."
Read: 'It was scary': How Aileen Lee launched her own VC firm after 13 years at Kleiner Perkins — and became one of the best in the business
Then there's Garry Tan, who rose 33 spots this year on the Seed 100. He said, "A founder who is a great builder tends to be a magnet, attracting the smartest people."
These three Seed 100 stars also told us how they achieved success in a world so full of competition.
How Jenny Fielding, the face of Techstars, became the most well-connected investor in New York
How seeking out the 'weird and wonderful' led to Eric Paley's seed investment in Uber and hundreds of other startups
Kevin Mahaffey began building software when he was 8 years old. Now he's the No. 3 seed investor.
But the list is also full of surprises, such as football great Joe Montana, who's VC fund has quietly become a powerhouse.