Investor Profile: Mantis VC

Celebrity venture funds usually mean consumer brands and logo-chasing. Mantis VC is the exception — a serious B2B technology fund that happens to be co-founded by the electronic music duo The Chainsmokers, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart.

Founded in 2019 in Los Angeles, Mantis invests at Seed and Series A in technology-enabled startups across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, health-tech, data infrastructure, gaming and Web3. In July 2025 it closed its third fund at $100 million — 25% larger than its $80 million second fund — taking total assets under management to $225 million. Fund III's limited partners include Summit Peak, Allocate, TriplePoint Capital and individual investors Mark Cuban, David Blitzer and Michael Rubin, a signal that institutional capital now takes the firm seriously on its own merits.

The portfolio reads like a B2B watchlist, not a merch line: cybersecurity firm Chainguard, AI financial-analyst startup Rogo, Superhuman, prediction-market platform Kalshi, crypto infrastructure company MoonPay, embedded-payments platform Pipe, game studio Frost Giant Studios, health-tech plays Tally Health and FitOn, plus OpenComp, Certa, Snickerdoodle, Burq and Slushy. General Partner Jeffrey Evans runs the investing engine alongside the co-founders.

What founders actually get from Mantis is unusual distribution. Pall and Taggart have played private shows for nearly every Fortune 500 company, and the firm openly converts that cultural footprint into customer introductions and enterprise relationships — precisely the door-knocking that early B2B startups struggle with. It's celebrity as a go-to-market weapon, not a vanity signal: the founders have deliberately tilted the portfolio toward B2B, where they believe the biggest opportunities lie, rather than consumer plays where their fame would be the obvious fit.

For founders, the read is straightforward: if you're building enterprise software, AI tooling or infrastructure and you want an investor that can put you in front of large-company buyers while writing a serious seed or Series A cheque, Mantis is a differentiated option in a crowded early-stage market.

The firm's Los Angeles base shapes its style: high energy, network-driven and operator-obsessed. Mantis describes its mission as being the most connected and impactful partner on the cap table, and its culture-first approach to venture is deliberate — the partners argue that founders deserve investors who open doors and move at founder speed rather than sitting passively on cap tables. With 109 to 170+ portfolio companies across its three funds, the firm has built a genuine track record in B2B, which is what lets a celebrity-founded fund raise $100 million in a brutal fundraising market.