Jump to content

Draft:Basis Set

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basis Set Ventures, LLC
Basis Set
Company typePrivate
IndustryVenture Capital
FoundedJune 23, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-06-23)
FounderLan Xuezhao
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, U.S.
AUMUS$600 million (2025)
Websitebasisset.com

Basis Set Ventures, LLC is an American venture capital firm specialized in investing in early stage startups building with artificial intelligence.[1] The firm is based in San Francisco, California.[2] As of 2025, the firm had $600 million in assets under management.[3][4][5]

History

[edit]

Basis Set was founded in 2017 by Lan Xuezhao as one of the first venture capital funds primarily focused on artificial intelligence.[6] Lan previously led Corporate Development at Dropbox and advised technology clients at McKinsey & Company. Lan is a founder and angel investor, having personally invested in many companies, including Scale AI and founded a children's brain training company that was later acquired.[7] She has a PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan.[8]

The fund announced its fund I in August 2017.[9] The firm announced its $165M fund II in April 2021.[10][11] Basis Set's latest $185M fund III was announced in February 2024.[12] While Basis Set's LPs have not been disclosed, Foundry and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures have both been publicly named as investors in the fund.[13] In a survey among 91 people at 69 venture capital firms, Basis Set ranked alongside Y Combinator, Lux and Accel as venture funds that venture capitalists would most like to invest in themselves.[14]

Investments

[edit]

The firm's investments have collectively raised over $4 billion dollars.[15] Selective investments include Quince, which announced a $120 million Series C in January 2025,[16] Sakana which announced a $100 million Series A in June 2024,[17] Ergeon which announced $53 million in funding in February 2024,[18] Vizcom which announced a $20 million Series A in March 2024,[19] Cusp which announced a $30 million Seed in June 2024,[20] Drata which announced a $200 million Series C in December 2022,[21] and Path which announced a $100 million Series D in October 2024.[22]

Engineering

[edit]

Basis Set is a quantitative venture capital fund, with an in-house machine learning team. The firm's infrastructure for sourcing potential investments and supporting its portfolio companies is called Pascal. [23]

Research

[edit]

Basis Set regularly conducts and publishes research on founder psychology. In 2020, Basis Set published a study analyzing the psychological traits associated with founder success, based on data from firms representing a cumulative $40 billion in assets under management. The research challenged many common assumptions held by founders and venture capitalists. For example, it found that age is not a significant predictor of founder success. It also showed that agility and scrappiness are more important than persistence or storytelling, that overconfidence can hinder customer empathy, and that the ability to consistently execute small tasks is strongly correlated with overall execution quality. The study further highlighted that confidence and humility are distinct traits — and that founders who are both confident and humble tend to outperform their peers.[24][25]

The firm followed up on this research with a study demonstrating that Large Language Models (LLMs) can be used to predict company outcomes by simulating future events and comparing the results against actual portfolio rankings. Despite using only founder psychology attributes as inputs, the outcomes predicted by their model had a moderately positive correlation to actual financial performance (IRR and MOIC). [26]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Basis Set". www.basisset.com. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  2. ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2021-04-26). "Basis Set Ventures Gives Up the Office as It Raises $165 Million Fund". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  3. ^ "SEC FORM D". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  4. ^ "SEC FORM D". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  5. ^ "SEC FORM D". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  6. ^ Mannes, John (2017-08-31). "Basis Set Ventures gets real to get to the heart of AI startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  7. ^ "To Thrive in Midwest, Investors Shouldn't Copy Silicon Valley". The Information. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  8. ^ uomsi. "Two new members appointed to UMSI Advisory Board | umsi". www.si.umich.edu. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  9. ^ Mannes, John (2017-08-31). "Basis Set Ventures gets real to get to the heart of AI startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  10. ^ Shieber, Jonathan (2021-04-22). "At Basis Set Ventures, merging venture capital and software development yields a $165 million new fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  11. ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2021-04-26). "Basis Set Ventures Gives Up the Office as It Raises $165 Million Fund". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  12. ^ Renbarger, Madeline. "Exclusive: Basis Set Raises $185 Million Third Fund, Doubling Down on AI & Automation". www.newcomer.co. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  13. ^ Renbarger, Madeline. "Exclusive: Basis Set Raises $185 Million Third Fund, Doubling Down on AI & Automation". www.newcomer.co. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  14. ^ Newcomer, Eric. "Sequoia, Founders Fund, USV, Elad Gil & Benchmark Top Venture Manager Survey". www.newcomer.co. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  15. ^ "Basis Set Ventures investment portfolio | PitchBook". pitchbook.com. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  16. ^ "DTC Startup Quince Announces $120 Million in New Funding". The Information. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  17. ^ "OpenAI's Japanese Rival Gets $1 Billion Valuation From Silicon Valley Investors". The Information. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  18. ^ "Ergeon Launches with $53M Raised: Read More!". www.ergeon.com. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  19. ^ Feldman, Amy. "Vizcom Raises $20 Million To Expand Its AI Design Software". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  20. ^ Butcher, Mike (June 18, 2024). "CuspAI raises $30M to create a GenAI-driven search engine for new materials". TechCrunch.
  21. ^ Sawers, Paul (2022-12-07). "Security compliance and automation platform Drata nabs $200M at $2B valuation". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  22. ^ Onderko, Joe (2024-10-14). "Path Robotics Secures $100M of Venture Capital Funding:". Path Robotics. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  23. ^ Shieber, Jonathan (2021-04-22). "At Basis Set Ventures, merging venture capital and software development yields a $165 million new fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  24. ^ "Founder Superpowers | Basis Set Ventures". www.basisset.com. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  25. ^ Walker, Rob (2020-01-06). "How to Become a Successful Founder in 2020". Marker. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
  26. ^ "Can Large Language Models (LLMs) predict founder success?". www.basisset.com. Retrieved 2025-04-28.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Basis_Set&oldid=1288013105"