Announcing 8VC Fund V

The world is broken. Let's fix it

Note: this originally appeared on the 8VC blog. Check it out here.

We are proud to announce 8VC Fund V, with $880 million in new capital to continue our work supporting and partnering with entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey, and building companies ourselves. 

It has been just over a decade since we began investing. The venture world has evolved considerably since then: there are new business models, new macroeconomic assumptions, and new geographies and industries open to innovation.

But some things remain the same. There are still big problems to solve and bold people from all over the planet who are inspired to address them through technology.  Impossibilities continue to become possibilities.  There is still a vast, uncharted wilderness yet to be explored.

Our mission at 8VC also hasn't changed: to fix a broken world. We work with founders to chase dreams to the edge of what's possible in pursuit of that mission. A decade in — with hundreds of portfolio companies and founders, and a multitude of investors, partners, allies, and friends — and we are just getting going.

We founded 8VC as a group of entrepreneurs, and working with founders only intensified our passion for building.  Through our 8VC Build program, we bring together the best people in the world to found the businesses we want to back, but that don't yet exist — and bring on investor partners as well.  By bringing industry knowledge and talent to bear, 8VC Build has created multiple successful, mission driven companies in convoluted areas like healthcare, defense, logistics, finance, software, and biosciences.

It is our great privilege to invest on behalf of some of the world’s savviest investors, including top endowments and pensions, enterprising families, strategic corporations, and dozens of fellow entrepreneurs. With the launch of 8VC Fund V, we are now stewards of over $6 billion in committed capital.

The 8VC team, now greater than sixty, is stronger than ever — and as excited about new possibilities as ever. Our new headquarters in Austin has become a magnet for entrepreneurs and builders from the world over; our beautiful waterfront office in San Francisco is thriving; and our New York office has been a vital link to exciting new companies and partners.

8VC has always been a mission-driven firm, and after the events of the last few years, we believe that mission, to fix our world, is more important than ever. We are optimistic about the resilience of our society — particularly here in the United States — but don't take for granted the unique prosperity we enjoy today.

That we live in a society with the rule of law, principles, and values that allow us to engage in our creative and innovative building, is nothing less than a miracle. Our civilization required generations of discipline, sacrifice, and stewardship. And achieving this level of prosperity also required ambitious, relentless work. Today, the core of our society is threatened by growing dysfunction, and a plethora of unaccountable bureaucracies and oligopolies.

The historian Ronald Syme observed of Rome's rise and fall that "the strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery". The American experiment in the new world illustrates this better than any other society in human history: our irreverent embrace of the frontier has led to unparalleled flourishing. 

At 8VC we are creating and mentoring the next generation of worthy leaders from the periphery of society — the builders and adventurers who are courageous enough to believe they can fix what is broken. And they can! In recent times we're reminded of the power of the bold individual: the great champions of late have been private citizens, leaders forged by hard work and fighting for success over many years in environments where failure was a very real possibility.

There are huge challenges facing our civilization, to be sure, and challenges to entrepreneurship as well. But as entrepreneurs, broken things present opportunities. And when we look deeper we see amazing transformations taking place all around us. AI is transforming the world inside and outside of computers; genomic engineering and new scientific knowledge are transforming the world of cells; advanced manufacturing is transforming the world of machines; new business models, incentives and innovation are transforming how we receive our healthcare. These are a few of our frontiers. 

Our adventures into volatile and messy industries aren't easy, but we believe these are the right battles to be fighting, for our LPs and for our society. Thank you for fighting alongside us. We deeply appreciate your partnership.

We promise to work tirelessly to generate world-class returns by backing the most extraordinary people living on the frontier, and confronting the most important problems. Through our shared success we are confident we can build a stronger, more innovative, and more dynamic future for us all.

The world is broken. 

Let’s fix it.