San Francisco-based Long Journey Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that proudly chases what it calls the magically weird. Founded in 2019, it backs founders with unconventional ideas other investors dismiss as ridiculous, and its stated north star is to be a bubbe, the Yiddish word for a grandmother who is hospitable, wise, protective, and direct. For outlier founders, that combination of patience and conviction is the pitch.
Thesis
Long Journey Ventures invests in ambitious founders solving complex, high-impact challenges through technology, with an emphasis on global scalability. The firm's own description of its taste is memorable: it looks for outliers with unconventional ideas, quirky personalities, and bold choices. Its team says it has collectively been part of more than 30 unicorns from their earliest days, writing some of the earliest cheques to companies dismissed as too weird at founding. Its values include chasing the magically weird, being a bubbe to founders, and treating capital seriously.
Sectors & Stages
Long Journey invests at pre-seed, seed, and Series A, and is sector-broad across software, fintech, artificial intelligence and big data, health tech, hardware, future of work, and consumer. It is headquartered in San Francisco and invests across the United States and beyond, with portfolio companies in the United Kingdom and Latin America as well.
Fund & Cheque Size
Long Journey raised a $35 million inaugural Fund I in 2019 after first proving its model through a roughly $10 million pilot fund deployed between 2016 and 2019. It later closed a third fund of about $181 million, and a fifth fund vehicle was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2026. Typical cheques run from $100,000 to $1 million, with a sweet spot of around $500,000, and the first fund targeted 35 to 40 core investments.
Notable Portfolio
The partners' early investments include SpaceX, Uber, Notion, Postmates, Affirm, Loom, Rappi, Crusoe Energy, Mindbloom, Flexport, and Niantic. More recent names include Truemed, whose Series A was led by Andreessen Horowitz, and Substrate, a semiconductor foundry backed since 2022.
Partners & Programs
Long Journey was founded by Lee Jacobs and Cyan Banister, formerly of Founders Fund, alongside Arielle Zuckerberg. Its partners today also include Jonathan Bruck, Justin Mares, Scott Banister, and Luke Qin. The firm's distinctive model is what it calls a Federation of Angels and Operators: experienced founders and operators join as true partners, so founders get a deep bench of veterans for minimal dilution. It supports founders with fundraising, recruiting, culture, and product growth, and runs a portfolio job board. No credits or perks programme is published.
How to apply for funding
Long Journey does not publish a formal application form. Founders can reach the team through its website at longjourney.vc, where the firm says plainly that if you are a weirdo building something crazy, it would love to chat. Warm introductions through the firm's federation of angels and operators are the most credible route in, and a pitch should lead with what makes the idea magically weird rather than safe.
Why it matters for founders
Long Journey Ventures is worth approaching if your idea sounds strange to most investors. Its partners have a documented record of backing dismissed ideas that became category-defining companies, its cheques of $100,000 to $1 million suit pre-seed and seed rounds, and its bubbe-style support is designed for founders in it for the long haul.