Investor profile
Twelve Below
VC
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Twelve Below is a New York-based pre-seed and seed fund founded in 2021 by Byron Ling and Taylor Greene to "reshape the future of venture capital" by operating as true partners to founders. The firm writes $1M–$3M checks, targeting 10–15% ownership stakes, and leads or co-leads a small number of high-conviction investments (roughly 25 per fund) in fintech, healthcare, energy, SMB, and consumer sectors — primarily in NYC-based companies. Twelve Below deliberately rejects the modern VC platform model: the two founding partners handle all founder relationships directly, with no platform team, emphasizing trust, personalized attention, and hands-on guidance through product-market fit. As Greene has described it: "We started with a blank piece of paper, designing the firm around that mentality based on relationships and trust with entrepreneurs."
Notable quotes
“Our mentors told us that this kind of old-school approach will drive great returns. We started with a blank piece of paper, designing the firm around that mentality based on relationships and trust with entrepreneurs.”
“We think trust is what underpins the ability to truly know what's going on in business but also have an outsize impact. Their success and our success are very much intertwined. We've been very deliberate in that model because we think founders truly want personalized attention with an individual trusted partner, which is very different and why we've resisted the model of having a platform team.”
“It just invests in our existing companies. We saw this disconnect in the market where we're very excited about pricing, especially as we follow on into our existing companies. Pricing, from a risk-reward perspective, seems great.”
Team
Recent investments
| Company | Round | Size | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barnwell Bio | Seed | $6m | 2026-01-26 |
| Conduit Health | Series A | $17m | 2026-03-17 |
| Arya Health | Series A | $18m | 2025-10-01 |
| VoiceOps | Seed | $5m | 2025-03-01 |
| Accrue Savings | Seed | — | 2021-01-01 |
| Odyssey Energy Solutions | Seed | — | 2022-01-01 |
| Relay Commerce | Seed | — | 2022-01-01 |
| Health Universe | Seed | — | 2023-01-01 |
| Rondah AI | Seed | — | 2025-01-01 |
| Truehold | Seed | — | 2021-01-01 |
Frequent co-investors
| VC firm | Deals together |
|---|---|
| Founder Collective | 3 |
| Union Square Ventures | 2 |
| Abstract Ventures | 2 |
| Equator | 2 |
| MCJ Collective | 2 |
| Alumni Ventures | 2 |
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