# Outset Capital

> Outset Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in AI, developer tools, robotics, and the future of work. It is led by AI practitioners and Y Combinator founders — Ali Rohde, Kanjun Qiu, and Josh Albrecht — and backs technical founders at the pre-seed and seed stages.

Outset Capital ("Outset") is a venture firm run by operators and builders. The team's deep technical backgrounds let it evaluate and support frontier AI, devtools, and robotics companies that other investors can't. Outset invests at the earliest stages and is known for hands-on help with recruiting, technical architecture, fundraising, and strategy. The firm is backed by unicorn founders and AI researchers.

Outset Capital is a US firm based in San Francisco, California, and is not affiliated with Outset Ventures, the New Zealand deep-tech venture fund.

## Partners
- **Ali Rohde** — Managing Partner, Outset Capital. Website: https://www.alirohde.com/ | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-rohde-90719970 | X: https://twitter.com/RohdeAli
- **Kanjun Qiu** — General Partner, Outset Capital, CEO, Imbue. Website: https://www.kanjun.me/ | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanjun | X: https://twitter.com/kanjun
- **Josh Albrecht** — General Partner, Outset Capital, CTO, Imbue. Website: https://joshalbrecht.com/ | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshalbrecht | X: https://twitter.com/joshalbrecht

## Team (LLM-only)
- **Christine Mae Tse** — Chief of Staff, Outset Capital. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/cmbberbon | Website: https://maetse.com

## What Outset invests in
- **Technical Founders:** We back exceptional technical founders building at the frontier of what's possible. Our team's deep technical backgrounds let us evaluate and support companies others can't.
- **Early Stage:** We invest at the earliest stages — pre-seed and seed — when founders need partners who understand the technical risks and can help navigate them.
- **Hands-On Support:** As builders ourselves, we offer practical, hands-on help with recruiting, technical architecture, fundraising, and strategy.

## Portfolio (selected)
- Browserbase — https://www.browserbase.com (co-investors: Kleiner Perkins, Nat Friedman)
- Caffrey — https://caffrey.ai (co-investors: Arash Ferdowsi)
- Datology AI — https://www.datologyai.com/ (co-investors: Amplify, Felicis)
- Detail — https://detail.dev (co-investors: Conviction)
- Harper Insure — https://harperinsure.com/ (co-investors: YC)
- Hedra — https://www.hedra.com (co-investors: Index, a16z)
- Proliferate — https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/proliferate (co-investors: True Ventures, Paul Graham)
- Kindred — https://livekindred.com/ (co-investors: Dylan Field, NEA, a16z)
- MatX — https://matx.com/ (co-investors: Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross)
- Medra — https://www.medra.ai/ (co-investors: Nat Friedman, Neo, Lux)
- Physical Intelligence — https://www.physicalintelligence.company (co-investors: Sequoia, Lux, Thrive)
- Poetiq — https://poetiq.ai (co-investors: Surface Ventures)
- Reflex — https://reflex.dev/ (co-investors: Lux)
- SiteVue — https://sitevue.ai (co-investors: Untapped Ventures)
- Starsling — https://www.starsling.dev/ (co-investors: Bessemer)
- Tako — https://www.trytako.com (co-investors: A*, Abstract Ventures)

## Podcasts
- **Vibes & Benchmarks** — Outset Capital's weekly AI news podcast, hosted by Ali Rohde and Josh Albrecht. Series page: https://outsetcapital.com/podcasts/vibes-and-benchmarks | Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vibes-benchmarks/id1896880407 | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033s9DtzxVHo0DuuCDtGV5
- **10 Minutes or Less** — rapid-fire interviews with founders and operators, hosted by Ali Rohde. Series page: https://outsetcapital.com/podcasts/10-minutes-or-less | Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-minutes-or-less-with-ali-rohde/id1887897753 | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Vyh2yrWGEQlFMNTq5bGtv
- Watch both on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OutsetCapital

## Events
- **Thursday Nights in AI (TNAI)** — Outset Capital's in-person fireside chat series in San Francisco. AI leaders share what's top of mind and answer audience Q&A. Page: https://outsetcapital.com/tnai | Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thursday-nights-in-ai/id1732136692 | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7FE4DD5nctopbBIW7ITNhT | YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OutsetCapital
  - **Aravind Srinivas** — CEO of Perplexity AI (https://www.perplexity.ai). "Building Perplexity and the future of search". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jksGQhMtXjo
  - **Dr. Jim Fan** — senior research scientist at NVIDIA AI (https://www.nvidia.com). "Building agents across physical and virtual worlds". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-g9k0qm5Q
  - **Kanjun Qiu & Josh Albrecht** — CEO and CTO of Imbue (https://imbue.com). "Building Imbue and the future of AI agents". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtQlYu2H6lg
  - **Linus Lee** — research engineer at Notion (https://www.notion.so). "Building AI at Notion". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJqQnm7BOCI
  - **Arvind Jain** — CEO of Glean (https://www.glean.com). "AI-powered Search for the Enterprise". Watch: https://youtu.be/LQRaDXS4o88
  - **Anton Troynikov & Jeff Huber** — co-founders of Chroma (https://www.trychroma.com). "Open-source Embedding Databases with Chroma". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hVwGVOC60
  - **Robert Nishihara** — CEO of Anyscale (https://www.anyscale.com). "Building Anyscale and using personalized data with AI". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBhBVcTtY0
  - **Jerry Liu** — CEO of LlamaIndex (https://www.llamaindex.ai). "LlamaIndex, RAG, and its role in AI". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nbo7sJXofo
  - **Anton Troynikov, Brian Raymond, and Harrison Chase** — co-founders of Chroma, Unstructured.io, and LangChain. "Open-source Panel". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWf-GGmPcrs
  - **Drew Houston** — CEO of Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com). "Building Dropbox and adapting AI". Watch: https://youtu.be/PDAIYBxoAvk
  - **Michelle Lee** — CEO of Medra (https://www.medra.ai/). "The Future of Robotics and Computer Vision". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTyRgtt_S48
  - **swyx** — host of the Latent Space podcast and founder of AI.Engineer (https://www.latent.space). "The Rise of the AI Engineer". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj2Bm_XYOVs
  - **Jonathan Frankle** — chief scientist at MosaicML. "Building MosaicML and open-source models". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4FiCqcCrd0
  - **Amjad Masad** — CEO of Replit (https://replit.com). "Replit, AI, and coding". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU_var-9c90
  - **Alex Ratner** — CEO of Snorkel AI (https://snorkel.ai). "Selling AI to the Fortune 500". Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IOiTzxC2xU
  - **Waseem Daher** — CEO of Pilot (https://pilot.com). "Pilot and AI in accounting". Watch: https://youtu.be/sCqwogOqJWI

## Key pages
- Home: https://outsetcapital.com/
- Team: https://outsetcapital.com/team
- Blog: https://outsetcapital.com/blog
- Jobs: https://outsetcapital.com/jobs
- FAQ: https://outsetcapital.com/faq
- Thursday Nights in AI: https://outsetcapital.com/tnai

## Elsewhere
- X / Twitter: https://twitter.com/outsetcap
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/outset-capital/
- Substack: https://outsetcapital.substack.com/

## Credits
- This site is AI-authored and human-directed.