SignalFire Bet On AI Before It Was Cool And Now It Has $1B To Spend

When Chris Farmer founded SignalFire in 2013, his thesis was simple but radical: venture capital was ripe for disruption not by new partners or geographies, but by machine learning. At a time when most investors still leaned on gut instinct and Rolodexes, Farmer was betting on code. A decade later, that bet is paying off.

SignalFire just announced over $1 billion in new capital across multiple funds, its largest raise to date. That brings total assets under management to more than $3 billion. The fresh capital includes $200 million for pre-seed and seed, $500 million for breakout-stage companies, and $700 million in follow-on funding. The firm plans to deploy this across 100+ pre-seed and 60+ seed investments over the next 2.5 years, with check sizes ranging from $100,000 to $30 million.

From ML Thesis to Institutional Validation

Farmer, who previously led seed at Bessemer and was a general partner at General Catalyst, launched SignalFire with the idea that venture firms should look more like tech companies. The firm’s early iterations of Beacon tracked startup employee movements and market anomalies. Today, it’s evolved into a full-stack ML platform analyzing over 100 public data sources, spanning 495 million job profiles, 80 million companies, and 100+ metrics per company.

That platform doesn’t just notify investors when a founder is about to leave a unicorn. It flags red flags in GTM motion, predicts breakout potential, and integrates directly with portfolio company workflows. The firm says this gives it “a compounding edge,” and LPs seem to agree. Among the new backers is CalPERS, the largest pension fund in the United States, which made a rare $100 million commitment to SignalFire’s new fund.

“While we’re known for leveraging this data and AI system to find and evaluate startups, it’s also used to help our portfolio companies succeed,” SignalFire said in its announcement. “From AI coaching for founders and executives to GTM strategy support, our talent team helps recruit top-tier leadership.”

That talent support has grown into what Farmer once described as “an entire executive team in a box,” spanning in-house recruiters, data scientists, and a full-stack GTM team. The firm also runs an Executive-in-Residence (XIR) program and now offers access to more than 80 career coaches, helping founders build not just companies, but themselves.

While much of the industry is racing to back the next OpenAI or Anthropic, SignalFire has kept a contrarian lens: focus on applied AI, not foundation models. The firm has avoided “model wars with weak moats,” instead backing companies that embed AI into products with clear business value.

That thesis has translated into investments in:

• EvenUp, which uses AI to automate personal injury settlement processes;
  
• Stampli, an AP automation platform powered by AI;
  
• Horizon3.ai, which simulates cyberattacks before they happen;
  
• Monarch Money, a personal finance platform using AI for smarter consumer decisions.
  

Other notable portfolio companies include Frame.io (acquired by Adobe for $1.3 billion), Grammarly, Ro, ClassDojo, Flock Freight, and Typeface — the latter led by former Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis. The firm is now focused on vertical AI in infrastructure, healthcare, cybersecurity, and developer tools.

“Executive Team in a Box”a

Beacon might be the engine, but SignalFire has built the rest of the machine too. The firm has quietly grown its operational team to over 50 people, including recruiters, data scientists, go-to-market specialists, and engineers. It also offers an Executive-in-Residence (XIR) program and access to over 80 career coaches, helping founders grow both their companies and themselves.

The recruiting arm alone has become a draw: powered by Beacon, it sifts through millions of profiles to help startups land technical and executive hires. Farmer once called this full-stack support model “an entire executive team in a box.” Now, it’s one of the firm’s most defensible advantages — especially in a market where early-stage capital is no longer scarce, but operational help is.

With the new capital, SignalFire will continue writing checks as small as $100K and as large as $30M, with targeted investments in breakout and late-stage companies. The XIR program, in particular, will see $15M–$30M allocations to back experienced operators building in AI-heavy sectors.

SignalFire isn’t chasing headlines or flashy deals. Its focus remains technical moats, repeatable GTM strategies, and using software to beat the market. As the firm put it in its announcement:

“We’re not chasing the AI hype cycle. Our strategy is to use the best data, AI, and people to find the best opportunities — and then help those founders build the future.”