Eniac Ventures is ready for your pitches (again)

By Monica Lim, Claire Rafson, and Anthony Ha

At the beginning of 2022, we did something totally new for Eniac — we launched a form where any founder could pitch us for funding.

The response was thrilling. Over the subsequent months, we received more than 1,000 submissions. We were excited to learn about so many interesting startups, and to meet with the ones that felt like the best fit.

But as time went on, we couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that something we’d described as “very much an experiment” needed to evolve beyond the loose, ad hoc approach that we’d been using. We had to make sure that when founders took the time to share their ideas and businesses with us, we actually had the time in our schedules to look closely at — and respond promptly to — their pitches.

So at the end of the summer, we took the pitch form down and talked through different ideas about how we could improve the process. Then we quietly put it up again, waiting a few weeks (so we knew everything was working smoothly) before we made an official announcement.

Now here it is, all official: We want you to send us your startup pitches! Without getting into all the boring details, we can say that our internal process has been streamlined, that we will continue looking at each and every pitch, and that we are committed to responding to all of them within 2–4 weeks.

We’ve made a few other changes as well. For one thing, if you have any questions or concerns about your submission, you can now email pitch@eniac.vc. In addition, we’ve done our best to communicate our investment focus more clearly, so there’s less time wasted on both sides. To save you a click, here’s the boilerplate:

Please note that we are a pre-seed and seed stage fund, focused on leading rounds in software-oriented companies. We invest in startups targeting North American markets, as well as those without a specific or limited geographic focus. While many of our portfolio companies have distributed teams, we prefer backing those that are incorporated in the US. In addition, while we are generally sector agnostic, it is rare for us to invest in consumer products, biotech, or cannabis, or in hardware-focused or non-technical companies.

Still think you might be a good fit? Pitch us!