Rocketship.vc: the data-driven fund that finds startups by algorithm

Most VCs find deals through networks. Rocketship.vc finds them with data. The San Francisco-based firm — started in 2015 by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman — built one of the world's largest proprietary startup databases and uses machine-learning models to spot promising companies worldwide, deliberately replacing the traditional inbound-deal-flow model. The firm is remote-first, invests across 14 countries, and frames its mission as democratising access to venture funding and removing unconscious bias from investment decisions.

Investment thesis

Rocketship.vc is deliberately sector-agnostic — B2C, B2B and deep tech all sit in its models' crosshairs — and its edge is engineering: the team holds weekly engineering meetings with all partners and employees to refine its models, feeding on signals like deal activity, download momentum, hiring trends and founder/team data. In India and Southeast Asia it has leaned into edtech, telemedicine and digital health, fintech, cloud software, e-grocery, B2B, gaming and collaboration software.

Funds, stages and cheque sizes

The firm invests at seed, Series A and Series B. Fund I was $40M (closed 2015) and Fund II — $100M, closed August 2020 — drew backing from Vulcan Capital (Paul G. Allen's investment arm), Adams Street Partners, Marc Andreessen's family office and Chris Dixon. Typical cheques in the Fund II era ran $2–5M per investment, with a pace of 10–15 companies a year. A third fund (2022 vintage) exists — a $125M first close was reported — but the firm has not publicly disclosed a final size, so total AUM is not publicly disclosed.

Notable portfolio

Rocketship.vc's India portfolio reads like a who's who of new-economy builders: Moglix, NoBroker, Khatabook, Yulu, Apna, FamPay, Jar, Teachmint, Raise (Dhan), Tessell, spacetech startup Agnikul, Quizizz and Zenskar. It has real exits too: Fynd (majority acquired by Reliance, 2019) and PaySense (PayU took a controlling stake at a $185M valuation, January 2020). By August 2020 India was already the firm's second-largest country by dollars invested (over $14M), and recent activity is brisk: Mindgrove Technologies' $8M Series A (co-led, December 2024), Tessell's $60M Series B (April 2025) and Raise/Dhan's $120M Series B that made it a unicorn (October 2025).

People

Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman — both ex-Amazon/Walmart engineers, co-founders of Junglee and Kosmix, with Rajaraman a co-author of Mining of Massive Datasets — are Partners. Madhu Shalini Iyer (ex-Chief Data Officer at Gojek) and Sailesh Ramakrishnan (ex-CTO/co-founder of LocBox, ex-NASA) serve as Managing Partners, with Wang Lam as Partner.

Credits and perks

Rocketship.vc runs no accelerator and advertises no startup credits or perks programme — its differentiator is the data-driven selection itself, which is precisely how founders in smaller ecosystems like India get noticed without Silicon Valley networks.

How to engage

There is no public application form — the contact page lists only the firm's Los Altos, California address. Reach out directly through the site; the firm explicitly invites founders building data-driven companies to get in touch. Uniquely, much of its deal flow comes from its models rather than warm intros, so building visible momentum — downloads, hiring, traction — is itself a pitch.