Category Ventures
Category Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2024 by Villi Iltchev. The firm focuses on investing in exceptional technical founders who are building category-defining enterprise software startups at the pre-seed and seed stages. Based in San Francisco, Category Ventures offers deep technical expertise, operational experience, and go-to-market support to help founders scale their businesses. The firm launched its debut fund, Category Fund I, in late 2024, with a target of $156 million and a final close of $160 million in January 2025. Category Ventures invests between $1
Investing activity
Category Ventures appears in 2 AI deals tracked by the AI Lounge deals desk, and led 1 of them. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $4M. The most recent are Mandel AI (Seed, $3.9M, Mar 2026) and HeyMilo (Seed, $3.9M, Jan 2026).
Category Ventures most often invests alongside Ritual Capital, Y Combinator, e2vc and Remarkable Ventures, and the companies it backs on AI Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Category Ventures
What AI companies has Category Ventures invested in?
Category Ventures's AI investments include Mandel AI and HeyMilo. The 2 rounds on AI Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Where is Category Ventures based?
Category Ventures is based in San Francisco, California, United States.
What stage does Category Ventures invest at?
In the rounds tracked on AI Lounge, Category Ventures has invested at Seed, with a median round of $4M. Category Ventures led 1 of those rounds.
Who does Category Ventures co-invest with?
Category Ventures's most frequent co-investors on AI Lounge are Ritual Capital (1 deal), Y Combinator (1 deal), e2vc (1 deal), Remarkable Ventures (1 deal) and Alumni Ventures (1 deal).
How can founders reach Category Ventures?
Founders on AI Lounge can see Category Ventures's contact details in AI Investor Contacts (paid plans), check for a warm introduction through members who worked with the firm under Warm Paths, and add Category Ventures to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.