New York — Seed
We see the vision before it becomes visible
LIMELIGHT Ventures is a seed-stage venture firm in New York. We write first cheques into companies founded and led by women in artificial intelligence, computational biology and space.
The form takes about ten minutes. A deck is optional. Both partners read every submission.
01 — The Gap
Plenty of capital says it backs women
Most of it goes to consumer and software. The women designing protein binders, training frontier models and qualifying launch hardware end up pitching generalists who see one company like theirs a year. Nobody covers that group as a category. We do.
02 — Coverage
Small enough to know completely
Three sectors, one founder criterion, one stage. That leaves a few hundred people worth knowing rather than ten thousand, so we can meet them at the bench, the lab demo day and the launch review instead of waiting for a forwarded deck.
03 — What We Look For
- A view you argue for
- You can say what you believe about your field that most of your peers still get wrong, and defend it under pressure.
- A problem with a deadline
- Something breaks, costs too much or takes too long today, and you can name who is paying for that now.
- An advantage that compounds
- Proprietary data, a hard-won process, an instrument you built, or a team nobody else could assemble.
- Reach beyond one market
- The first customers may be in one city. The technology should not be limited to one country.
04 — Focus
Seed. Deep technology. Founded by women
Artificial intelligence · Computational biology · Space technology
One page: what we fund, where we look, and the six things we weigh.
05 — A Note to Founders
If you see something others do not yet see, we want to hear from you
Come early. You do not need a finished product, a warm introduction or every answer — you need to know the problem better than we do and be able to say why this company has to exist now.
Fill in the introduction form, attach a deck if you have one, and we reply within ten business days. Not raising yet? Write to us anyway at hello@limelight.ventures.