M13: The 'Venture Engine' Betting Early on Structural Shifts

M13 — named for the brightest star cluster in the northern sky — calls itself a "venture engine". Founded in 2016 with offices in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, it invests early in visionary founders building through structural shifts that create new markets and opportunities: founders who see not just what a product can do, but what a market can become.

The firm is led by co-founders and managing partners Carter Reum and Courtney Reum, alongside managing partners Karl Alomar and Latif Peracha, with investing partners including Brent Murri and Morgan Blumberg. Many on the team started as operators, which shapes the firm's hands-on posture.

The track record is the calling card: 18 unicorns backed at seed or Series A, and 12 unicorn founders have chosen M13 to build their next company. Early bets include Ring (founder Jamie Siminoff, seed, consumer), SpaceX (Elon Musk), Arena Club (founders Brian Lee and Derek Jeter, Series A, consumer), OpenFX (founder Prabhakar Reddy, Series A, fintech — real-time cross-border payment infrastructure) and Prepared (founders Michael Chime, Dylan Gleicher and Neal Soni, Series A, govtech — an AI-powered platform for emergency call centres). The wider portfolio spans Lyft, Pinterest, Daily Harvest, FabFitFun and Rothy's, with more than 80 direct investments, 16 exits and a portfolio enterprise value above $137 billion.

On funds, the firm announced its $400 million Fund III — exceeding its $275 million target on strong LP demand — to back early-stage teams building technology for the future of work, commerce, health and money; its earlier $175 million Fund II expanded the mandate toward emerging technologies reshaping consumer behaviour.

For founders, the differentiator is the Propulsion Platform: vertically focused experts, tech tools and a network spanning product, revenue, talent, brand, data and legal/operations — built on the premise that "the hardest moments happen between rounds". The firm also runs Future Perfect dinners and happy hours across the US, convening its founder and investor community. Founders such as Nami Baral of Niural, Parth Shah of Polimorphic, Mike Chime of Prepared and Alex Yancher of Passport credit the firm with opening rooms that would otherwise take years to reach — and with steady hands on the hardest decisions.