SV Angel
About SV Angel
SV Angel, founded by Ron Conway, invests at seed and was an early investor in Google, Airbnb and Stripe. It has backed AI companies including Safe Superintelligence, Mistral AI and humans&.
Ron Conway and David Lee launched SV Angel in 2009, according to Wikipedia. Conway had previously invested mostly through Baseline Ventures. The first fund raised $10 million. A 2016 SEC filing reported a $53 million seed fund. Lee left in 2015, and Refactor Capital, his own firm, followed in 2016. In 2018 the firm said it would stop raising outside seed funds for a time. In March 2022 it announced a $269 million growth equity fund, its first, led by Ashvin Bachireddy, who co-founded Geodesic Capital. In January 2025 it closed a second growth fund of $330 million. Ron Conway is founder and managing partner. His sons Ronny and Topher Conway are also managing partners. Topher joined in 2009 and was on the 2023 Forbes Midas List. Beth Turner was promoted in 2022 to lead the seed fund. A third-party profile (f4.fund) lists Mike Sho Liu and Andrea Wang as general partners and Aashai Avadhani as AI lead. This was not confirmed on the firm's own site.
SV Angel invests in AI across foundation model labs, robotics, applied AI and AI tooling, usually alongside larger funds. In Safe Superintelligence's $1 billion round, SV Angel was named with NFDG, a16z, Sequoia and DST Global. Dealroom lists a roughly 2.5% stake in SSI and holdings in Hugging Face, Hippocratic AI and Modular AI. SVTR counts 74 AI deals, most at seed and Series A, with a $480 million humans& seed in January 2026 among the recent ones. Crunchbase lists Topher Conway as working closely with Hugging Face, among other companies.
The firm backs companies from pre-seed through growth through two strategies, a seed fund and a growth fund. It has not published check sizes on the sources reviewed. A third-party profile citing the firm's FAQ puts typical seed checks at around $200,000. NFX lists Ron Conway's personal range as $25,000 to $100,000. Growth check sizes are not disclosed. Crunchbase shows 31 lead investments out of more than 1,400, so SV Angel mostly joins rounds that others lead. It does lead some, such as Lance's $5M seed on the Lounge deals desk.
- Safe Superintelligence: AI lab co-founded by Ilya Sutskever; $1B Series A in September 2024.
- Mistral AI: AI model developer; $640M Series B in June 2024.
- humans&: $480M seed in January 2026.
- Skild AI: $300M Series A in July 2024.
- Hugging Face: AI model and developer platform; Dealroom lists SV Angel as a roughly 4% holder.
- Engram: $98M seed in June 2026.
- Hone: $60M seed in October 2026.
- Physical Superintelligence: $58M seed in September 2026.
- Sandstone: $39.6M seed in January 2026.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV_Angel
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Conway
- techcrunch.com/2016/11/23/sv-angel-raises-53m-for-its-latest-seed-inve
- ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/ron-conway
- cio.com/article/3504983/ilya-sutskevers-safe-superintelligence-inc-lan
- dealroom.co/investors/sv-angel
- svtr.ai/orgs/sv-angel?lang=en
- f4.fund/firms/sv-angel
Investing activity
SV Angel appears in 33 AI deals tracked by the AI Lounge deals desk, rounds totalling $3.02B, and led 2 of them. The rounds are mostly Seed, Series B and Series A, with a median round size of $15M and the largest at $1B. The most recent are Dream (Seed, $17M, Oct 2026), Dream Labs (Seed, $90M, Oct 2026) and Hone (Seed, $60M, Oct 2026).
SV Angel most often invests alongside Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital and Kindred Ventures, and the companies it backs on AI Lounge are mostly in AI, AI for architecture and engineering and Robotics foundation models.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about SV Angel
Does SV Angel invest in AI startups?
Yes. It has backed Safe Superintelligence, Mistral AI and humans&. SVTR counts 74 AI deals from 2023 to 2026, mostly seed and Series A.
How large are SV Angel's seed checks?
The firm does not publish a figure on the sources reviewed. A third-party profile citing the firm's FAQ says seed checks are around $200,000. NFX lists Ron Conway's personal range as $25,000 to $100,000.
Does SV Angel lead rounds?
Rarely. Crunchbase shows 31 lead investments out of more than 1,400, and the firm usually joins rounds led by others. It led Lance's $5M seed.
How big are SV Angel's funds?
Its first fund in 2009 raised $10 million, and a seed fund filed in 2016 reported $53 million. Its growth funds are $269 million (2022) and $330 million (2025).
Who runs SV Angel?
Ron Conway founded the firm and is a managing partner, with Ronny and Topher Conway. Ashvin Bachireddy leads growth, and Beth Turner was named to lead the seed fund in 2022.
What AI companies has SV Angel invested in?
SV Angel's AI investments include Dream, Dream Labs, Hone, SafeWorld, Ghost, Flow Engineering, Proximal and Ferry Health. The 33 rounds on AI Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Where is SV Angel based?
SV Angel is based in San Francisco, US.
What stage does SV Angel invest at?
In the rounds tracked on AI Lounge, SV Angel has invested at Seed, Series B, Series A and Pre-seed, with a median round of $15M. SV Angel led 2 of those rounds.
Who does SV Angel co-invest with?
SV Angel's most frequent co-investors on AI Lounge are Andreessen Horowitz (8 deals), General Catalyst (8 deals), Sequoia Capital (5 deals), Kindred Ventures (4 deals) and BoxGroup (4 deals).
How can founders reach SV Angel?
Founders on AI Lounge can see SV Angel'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 SV Angel to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.