Venture Capital

Susa Ventures

Susa Ventures is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2013 by Chad Byers, Leo Polovets, and Seth Berman on the belief that founders are the lifeblood of progress. Susa is a high-conviction, low-volume seed investor that concentrates on data-centric companies with durable competitive moats such as proprietary data, economies of scale, and network effects, and it deliberately caps each partner at a small handful of active companies so it can operate alongside founders in a late-stage, hands-on manner at the earliest stages. The firm invests primarily at pre-seed and seed (occasionally Series A), writing initial checks that typically range from roughly $1M to $5M across artificial intelligence, fintech, healthcare, logistics and supply chain, cybersecurity, developer tools and infrastructure, and consumer. Susa is known for a founder-first posture (it avoids forcing founders out) and for an unusually high seed-stage unicorn hit rate, with notable investments including Robinhood, Flexport, Andela, Newfront, Stord, Human Interest, Mux, Stedi, Viz.ai, and Casetext. The firm closed Fund V at $175M in 2025 and also runs the experimental Humba Ventures vehicle for frontier bets. This profile tracks Susa's identity and its portfolio graph across the API Evangelist network.

21 portfolio companies 5 publish APIs here 8 properties
Venture CapitalPre-SeedSeedSeries AArtificial IntelligenceFintechHealthcareSupply ChainDeveloper ToolsInfrastructureSan FranciscoNorth America

Susa Ventures has 21 portfolio companies tracked on the APIs.io network, of which 5 (24%) publish APIs indexed here.

Its highest-rated API providers on the network are Stedi, Stord, Flexport, Namely, Mux.

Portfolio on the Network

Portfolio companies that publish APIs indexed on APIs.io, grouped by their API Evangelist rating. Exemplar and Strong are expanded by default.

Developing 1 Usable, with meaningful gaps to close
Emerging 4 Early or largely undocumented

Rest of Portfolio

16 further portfolio companies that don’t yet have a provider page on the network.

AndelaCasetextCluelyExpanseHuman InterestMashginMedallionModern AnimalMolekuleNewfrontNourishPeriscope DataPexRobinhoodScalyrViz.ai

Scroll for all 16

Properties

Portfolio

Where the firm publishes its investments

Team

Partners and investing staff

Content

Blog, podcast, newsletter, and research

Firm

The firm itself

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑
aid: susa-ventures
name: Susa Ventures
description: >-
  Susa Ventures is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm founded
  in 2013 by Chad Byers, Leo Polovets, and Seth Berman on the belief that founders
  are the lifeblood of progress. Susa is a high-conviction, low-volume seed investor
  that concentrates on data-centric companies with durable competitive moats such as
  proprietary data, economies of scale, and network effects, and it deliberately caps
  each partner at a small handful of active companies so it can operate alongside
  founders in a late-stage, hands-on manner at the earliest stages. The firm invests
  primarily at pre-seed and seed (occasionally Series A), writing initial checks that
  typically range from roughly $1M to $5M across artificial intelligence, fintech,
  healthcare, logistics and supply chain, cybersecurity, developer tools and
  infrastructure, and consumer. Susa is known for a founder-first posture (it avoids
  forcing founders out) and for an unusually high seed-stage unicorn hit rate, with
  notable investments including Robinhood, Flexport, Andela, Newfront, Stord, Human
  Interest, Mux, Stedi, Viz.ai, and Casetext. The firm closed Fund V at $175M in 2025
  and also runs the experimental Humba Ventures vehicle for frontier bets. This profile
  tracks Susa's identity and its portfolio graph across the API Evangelist network.
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
x-type: venture-capital
x-category: Venture Capital
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-17'
specificationVersion: '0.20'
tags:
  - Venture Capital
  - Pre-Seed
  - Seed
  - Series A
  - Artificial Intelligence
  - Fintech
  - Healthcare
  - Supply Chain
  - Developer Tools
  - Infrastructure
  - San Francisco
  - North America
apis: []
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://susaventures.com/
  - type: Portfolio
    url: portfolio/susa-ventures-portfolio.yml
  - type: Team
    url: team/susa-ventures-team.yml
  - type: Blog
    url: https://susaventures.substack.com/
  - type: Newsletter
    url: https://susaventures.substack.com/
  - type: Crunchbase
    url: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/susa-ventures
  - type: Twitter
    url: https://x.com/chadbyers
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/in/misha-gordonrowe/
  - type: Features
    data:
      - "Stage: Pre-seed, Seed (occasionally Series A)"
      - "Typical check: ~$1M-$5M initial"
      - "Sectors: AI, fintech, healthcare, logistics and supply chain, cybersecurity, developer tools and infrastructure, consumer"
      - "Geography: Primarily United States"
      - "Fund V: $175M (closed 2025)"
      - "Founded: 2013"
      - "HQ: San Francisco, California, USA"
    sources:
      - https://susaventures.com/
      - https://superscout.co/investor/susa-ventures
      - https://vcbeast.com/vc-firms/susa-ventures/portfolio
    updated: '2026-07-17'
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: info@apievangelist.com
    url: https://apievangelist.com
  - FN: APIs.json
    url: http://apisjson.org
  - FN: Susa Ventures
    url: https://susaventures.com/