Micro-VC
A small venture capital fund, typically under $50M, focused primarily on seed and pre-seed stage investing.
Micro-VCs are institutional funds, usually structured just like larger venture funds (LPs, GPs, management fee, carry) but sized much smaller — commonly under $50M and often well under $25M — allowing them to write smaller checks and take meaningful ownership in very early-stage companies where larger funds' check sizes wouldn't make sense.
Micro-VCs proliferated over the last decade as fund formation became easier and cheaper (largely enabled by SPVs, SAFEs, and lighter-weight fund administration tools), giving many former operators and angels a path to launch their own small fund rather than joining an established firm.
Founders raising a seed round should weigh a micro-VC's specific value-add and reserves for follow-on carefully — a small fund with limited reserves may not be able to meaningfully participate in your Series A even if they want to, unlike a larger seed-stage fund built with follow-on capacity in mind.
What fund size counts as a micro-VC?
There's no official cutoff, but the term is commonly applied to funds under roughly $50M, with many micro-VC funds sized well below $25M.
Related terms
Run the numbers yourself: dilution, SAFE conversion, and fund-returner calculators.