Baseline Ventures

Baseline Ventures is a pioneering micro-VC firm founded in 2006 by Steve Anderson to address the gap between individual investors and institutional venture capitalists. The firm invests in early-stage technology companies across multiple sectors, backing founders that aim to build and grow their businesses into change-affecting enterprises. Baseline writes concentrated seed checks of $250k–$1M, taking 5–15% stakes and giving founders 12–18 months of runway to develop product-market fit with minimal pressure. Operating as a one-person firm, Steve Anderson personally handles all sourcing, decision-making, and partnering, emphasizing founder quality and rapid, high-conviction decisions over elaborate financial modeling. The firm has backed more than 100 companies since inception, with over 50 profitable exits, and is best known as the first seed investor in Instagram, as well as early backer of Twitter, Heroku, Stitch Fix, PagerDuty, and SoFi.