Primary Venture Partners: New York's Seed Powerhouse Goes National with a $625M Fund V

Some firms invest in founders. Primary Venture Partners hires a 60-person army to work for them. Founded in 2015 by Brad Svrluga and Ben Sun with a $60M debut fund, the New York City firm has grown from a hometown seed specialist into one of the largest dedicated seed franchises in the United States — closing $625M for Fund V in February 2026 and managing about $1.65B in total.

The fund story tells the growth: Fund I at $60M (2015), Fund II at $100M (June 2018), PVP III — a $150M core seed fund plus a $50M Select II opportunity fund — announced in February 2021, followed by a $275M fund with a $163M opportunity vehicle, and now Fund V, its largest yet.

With Fund V, Primary writes cheques of $5M–$10M and plans to back 40–50 companies over three years, while still going as early as pre-seed. The firm describes itself as a "specialized and scaled seed fund" — a generalist with eight sector-focused investing partners covering financial services, healthcare, vertical AI, infrastructure and compute, cybersecurity, consumer, go-to-market technology and industrial evolution.

What founders talk about most is the platform. The Portfolio Impact Team — which the firm says outnumbers its investors roughly two to one — handles talent, finance, market development and communications. Around it sit the Primary Expert Network of more than 200 seasoned operators, the PrimaryLabs incubation engine, a Talent Program, and the Primary Mastermind Network of portfolio founders. Free community resources include the NYC Founder Guide and the NYC Founders Fellowship, a six-month part-time programme that takes no equity.

Primary began as the only fund of scale focused solely on New York. It has since gone national: roughly a third of its deals are in New York, a third in San Francisco and a third elsewhere — and the firm has announced plans to open a San Francisco office with 12–15 Bay Area employees by the end of 2027.

The portfolio reads like a New York hall of fame. Jet.com, a seed investment, was acquired by Walmart for $3.3B; fitness hardware star Mirror went to Lululemon for $500M; AI chipmaker Etched announced a $10.3B Series C led by Sequoia; K Health reached unicorn status at $1.5B; and Alloy became a billion-dollar risk-management company. Nine of the 25 investments from the firm's first fund reached unicorn status, with two cash exits above $500M.