Jason Best

Thrilled to share the launch of Criticality, a $65M fund built to back founders solving hard, high-leverage problems at the intersection of technical complexity and real-world urgency. Criticality builds on the foundation we’ve laid at Antler - applying our conviction-driven approach to companies at Seed & Series A. The fund is sector-flexible but applies a deep tech lens to each opportunity, targeting non-obvious, high-leverage problems from the earliest stages of company formation. Grateful to the New Mexico State Investment Council for their support in anchoring Criticality. More to come soon from Cash Allred & I.

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I’ve known David Meister for years and backed him at Sydecar, so I’ve seen his ability to build through complexity. Axiom Trust is taking on one of the most outdated parts of wealth infrastructure, trust administration, by pairing a regulated trust company with AI-native workflows. We're proud to invest again and congrats to the team on the launch!

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Trying something new this week - a studio industry roundup with my take on what matters. The studio model is no longer an experiment being run in a handful of places. It is infrastructure being built across geographies, sectors, and institutional types. 5️⃣ stories from the past seven days:  1️⃣ OSS Ventures hit a EUR 40M first close on a EUR 75M follow-on fund -- capital raised specifically to back the 30 companies their studio created since 2019. The "build then fund" lifecycle is maturing. B'More Venture Studio with a similar thesis: studio operations first, then dedicated capital to scale what's working.  2️⃣ Delta40 raised $20M from 54 investors across 13 countries to launch Africa's first integrated venture studio and fund. The LP base is almost entirely DFIs and foundations. Impact capital is discovering the studio model as a deployment vehicle, something I seeing across geographies (conversations with Michael Bob Starr and Damias McDonald this week alone) 3️⃣ Start Holdings launched Start.vc out of NYC and Barcelona after a $200M EV infrastructure exit. Another operator-turned-studio-founder. This is the pattern we see quite often in our work at 9point8 -- experienced operators like Jason Goldsmith who've built and exited deciding the studio model is how they want to build next.  4️⃣ UBC HATCH admitted 10 new deep-tech spinouts for Winter 2026 -- mostly climate tech. University venture builders are quietly becoming one of the fastest-growing segments. Follow Evan Allen and Jaimie Testai to keep track of its rapid evolution.  5️⃣ The INVEST Act is advancing through the Senate. If passed, it expands qualifying VC fund size from $10M to $50M and loosens general solicitation rules for accelerator and university events. For studio-funds -- and for folks in the The Venture Studio Forum community tracking policy -- this could be the most significant capital formation legislation since the JOBS Act. If this roundup format is useful, I'll keep it going. What other noteworthy news hit your desk this week, and what stood out to you?

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Two articles I've been thinking about together this week: Amir Kabir at Overlook VC on "the defining tension of 2026: extraordinary concentration at the infrastructure layer, extraordinary democratization at the application layer" Take a read: https://lnkd.in/gyaFg-nB And Isaac Arnold's framework for what actually makes an application layer company durable: workflow entanglement, domain specific knowledge, and data that compounds from usage rather than just intelligence. Take a read for yourself: https://lnkd.in/gSDXA-vH Amir identifies where the opportunity is, Isaac identifies why most companies building there won't capture it durably and what separates the ones that will.

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📊 AmTech Daily: Deals Defining America's Future — Feb 25, 2026 Each morning, Commonweal Ventures compiles the day's top #AmTech deals and news at the intersection of government and technology. Here's today's. Comment "Subscribe" to get the full briefing, news included, in your inbox. Education  🔹 Subject (Beverly Hills, CA), which offers an AI-powered digital curriculum platform for middle and high school students, raised $28 million in funding led by Vistara Growth, joined by NextEquity Partners, Green Street Impact Partners, Outcomes Collective Growth Capital, and other existing investors. Health  🔹 Handl Health (Los Angeles, CA), which provides an analytics platform to help health plans and benefits consultants design employer health benefits that lower costs and improve care quality, raised $14.2 million in Series A funding led by Arthur Ventures, joined by Syndra Capital Partners, a strategic investor, Mucker Capital, Riverfront Ventures, Digital Health Venture Partners, and Boutique Venture Partners. Aerospace  🔹 Sophia Space (Pasadena, CA), building orbital data centers composed of ultra-thin, solar-powered computer panels called TILES that sit on or next to satellites, raised $10 million in seed funding led by Alpha Funds, KDDI Corporation Green Partners Fund, and Unlock Venture Partners. Finance  🔹 Comeryx Insurance (Denver, CO), which runs an AI-driven online insurance platform that automatically prices and issues specialty liability coverage for small trade contractors that traditional carriers won't easily underwrite, raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Altai Ventures, joined by American Family Ventures, Intact Ventures, Boulder Ventures, Arch Capital Group, and Echelon. AI Chips  🔹 Cerebras (Sunnyvale, CA), which designs wafer-scale AI chips and computer systems that let large organizations train and run advanced AI models faster and more efficiently, has confidentially filed to go public in the U.S. after previously raising more than $2.5 billion in private funding across eight rounds. Energy  🔹 Terrasmart's eBOS division (Grand Rapids, MI), which makes prefabricated electrical wiring and combiner-box systems that connect utility-scale solar panels to inverters and the grid, was acquired by GameChange Energy Technologies for $70 million to extend its end-to-end solar infrastructure offering. What is #AmTech? It's our term for the companies tackling America's biggest challenges in sectors like energy, defense, healthcare, and infrastructure. In these markets, the path to building category-winning companies runs through government, and the founders who understand that are building the most consequential technology businesses of our generation.

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🚀 Verif-y is redefining digital record management. With 9 State DOE contracts, 200+ institutions onboarded, and 90%+ margins, this AI-powered SaaS platform is solving a $20B+ global problem: fragmented, insecure, and outdated education and credential systems. Now raising $5M Seed funding to accelerate U.S. and international growth. 👉 For VCs and institutional investors: this is defensible, AI-driven SaaS with regulatory moats — the right product, right time. See www.verif-y.com Then DM me for more info. Join us on this funding round? Follow me on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/e8bZ8srt

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We invest at Pre-VC and Pre-Seed, and then help our founders find a Seed round when they're ready. Here are 27 Seed investors that we *know* are active right now. Blue Moon Bonfire Ventures Chingona Ventures Flying Fish Partners Foothill Ventures Great North Ventures ground game HealthX Ventures InsurTech Venture Partners KCRise Fund Las Olas Venture Capital Leva Capital Maven Ventures Monte Carlo Capital Moonshots Capital OneSixOne Ventures Oval Park Capital Pixel Perfect Ventures Range Ventures Revolution SNAK Venture Partners Startup Capital Ventures Supernode Global Susa Ventures Trilogy Equity Partners True Ventures True Wealth Ventures

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