Base10 Partners

Firm Profile

Early-stage technology investment firm founded 2017 in San Francisco (727 Sansome St.) by TJ Nahigian and Adeyemi Ajao, built around one tightly-held thesis: “investing in automation for the Real Economy” — backing founders bringing automation to the large, traditional, under-digitized sectors (finance, food, retail, operations, logistics, construction, healthcare, agriculture, waste management) rather than to Silicon Valley’s own backyard. Their tagline: “Founders who solve problems for the 99%.” ^[extracted] base10.vc · LinkedIn

• What they back: automation / AI applied to “the Real Economy” — increasingly agentic AI that automates back-office workflows (recent leads: AI procurement automation, agentic customer-interaction intelligence, construction back-office OS). Explicit sector lens on finance, food, retail, operations/logistics. ^[extracted]
• Stage focus: seed and Series A (occasional pre-seed for exceptional founders); can lead. Typical checks roughly $2M–$8M at seed, $5M–$15M at Series A (third-party profiles; firm-stated 2020 range was “$500K–$5M” and has grown with fund size). ^[single-source on the current dollar ranges — third-party profiles, not firm-stated] f4.fund · vcsheet · superscout
• Funds / vintage: Fund I ≈ $137M–$150M (2018), Fund II ≈ $250M(2020)\ast \ast ,alaterflagship\ast \ast \approx$460M (2022), plus the Advancement Initiative (a separate growth/pre-IPO vehicle, see below). Reported total AUM is in the ~$1.3B–$1.8B range across ~6 active funds + 100+ portfolio companies — ⚠️ sources disagree on the exact AUM figure and on whether the $460M was “Fund II” or “Fund III”; treat fund-numbering as approximate (Pass-2 reconcile against SEC Form ADV). ^[ambiguous] TechCrunch · vcsheet
• The Advancement Initiative (distinct from the flagship seed/Series-A funds): a ~$250M+ vehicle (launched 2021) that buys secondary/late-stage stakes in leading pre-IPO startups (Plaid, Notion, etc.) and donates ~50% of the fund’s carried interest / profits to HBCU endowments and scholarships. This is the engine behind Base10’s signature “donate 50% of profits from our largest investments to create scholarships at underfunded colleges” line. It is growth/pre-IPO and philanthropic — NOT the fund that would invest in init.inc’s seed. Note it once; init’s path is the early-stage flagship. ^[extracted] PRNewswire
• Geography: US-centric but deliberately global and beyond-SV — heavy Latin America (Nubank, Cabify lineage via Ajao), Europe (Italy/Spain), and diverse US founders (~60% of investments women/minority-led per 2020 reporting). TechCrunch
• Structure / identity: partnership (~23 staff). Notably the first Black-led VC firm to cross $1B AUM; data/engineering-forward (runs an internal “Base11” investment-intelligence platform — see Anirudh Nair). ^[extracted]
• Notable portfolio: Nubank, Stripe, Figma, Notion, Brex, Plaid, Aurora Solar, Chili Piper, Handshake, Contentful, Wonolo, All Day Kitchens, Popmenu. vcsheet (some via the Advancement Initiative secondary vehicle, not all early-stage primary).

Partners

• TJ Nahigian — Co-Founder & Managing Partner. LA native; ex-investor at Summit Partners, Accel, Coatue; founded mobile job-matching app Jobr (which Ajao backed → led them to co-found Base10). ^[extracted, single firm bio + TechCrunch]
• Adeyemi Ajao — Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Serial entrepreneur (grew up Nigeria/Spain); founded Identified (→ Workday), Tuenti (→ Telefónica, ~$100M),co-founded\ast \ast Cabify\ast \ast ($1.4B+); ex-Workday Ventures. LinkedIn · TechCrunch
• Caroline Broder — Principal. ^[single-source — vcsheet]
• Robby Greer — Head of Data (built Base10’s data/sourcing engine; onboarded Anirudh into VC). archive.base10.vc/team
• Anirudh Nair — Founding Product Engineer (Engineering & Research), NOT an investing partner. Our actual point of contact (see Fundraise Relationship).

Recent pre-seed/seed activity (Pass-1 sketch — ≤5 deals; full pull = Pass 2)

Sketch only; source-tagged rows in /Users/sazzad14/seed-market-scan/firms/base10-partners.csv.

• Traza — $2.1M pre-seed, led by Base10, Apr 2026. AI agents that automate procurement workflows — almost a mirror of init’s back-office-automation thesis. ✅ VentureBeat
• InfiniteWatch — $4M pre-seed, led by Base10, Dec 2025. Agentic customer-interaction intelligence (session-replay agent + voice-AI monitoring); founded by ex-CoverWallet leadership. ✅ PRNewswire (deal partner not named in release).
• Pillar — €12M seed (~$13M), co-led by Earlybird + Base10, May 2026. “OS for construction” that automates the entire back office (quoting, margins, payroll, reporting via WhatsApp/NLP). Strong “vertical AI owns a workflow” parallel. ✅ TipRanks
• The Mobile-First Company — $12M, co-led by Base10 + Lightspeed, Nov 2025, Argentina. ⚠️ stage labeled loosely (“investment round”); verify in Pass 2.
• Lexroom.ai — €16M Series A, led by Base10, Sep 2025, Italy (legal-AI). Series A, included for recent-activity context only.

Best data channels for this firm

• Trade press by geography is essential — Base10 invests heavily outside the US (Italy, Spain, Argentina, Brazil), so a US-only sweep will miss rounds. Use Sifted / EU-Startups / Tech.eu / Teleborsa (IT) for Europe and LatamList / Contxto / Bloomberg Línea for Latin America alongside TechCrunch/VentureBeat/PRNewswire.
• PRNewswire/Business Wire founder releases reliably confirm amount/stage/date and that Base10 led — but frequently do NOT name the individual deal partner (true for InfiniteWatch). Partner attribution is the weak field here.
• Firm site (base10.vc) is JS-rendered — the team and portfolio pages return an empty shell to fetchers; use LinkedIn company page, vcsheet, f4.fund, Tracxn, Crunchbase for roster/portfolio, and the archive.base10.vc snapshot for older bios.
• SEC Form D works only on the US deals (much of the portfolio is foreign-flip / LatAm / EU → no SEC trail). Form ADV is the best path to reconcile the ⚠️ AUM/fund-numbering ambiguity.
• Codex/aggregators likely understate role on co-led EU rounds (per playbook §5) — corroborate, don’t rely.

Fundraise Relationship (init.inc)

• Status: Base10’s thesis closely matches init.inc’s wedge — “automation for the Real Economy,” “solve problems for the 99%,” and a 2025–26 deal pattern that is explicitly agentic back-office automation (Traza = AI procurement automation; InfiniteWatch = agentic customer-interaction; Pillar = construction back-office OS). They lead seed rounds at the size init needs. The relationship is not yet at the partner level: the path in is Anirudh Nair — Base10’s founding product engineer, not an investing partner — who can route to a deal partner (Nahigian/Ajao/Broder). Wave: active, early relationship-building (gym/coffee cadence with Sazzad via Isaiah).
• Conversation log (firm-level via Anirudh — newest first):
  • 2026-05-14 — Anirudh confirmed “yes you should [raise]” and said he texted “my early investor” (a woman, name TBD) to set up times — i.e. offering to route init to an actual investor in his network. ⚠️ Awaiting that contact. (See Anirudh page; the woman is an open COULDN’T-GET.)
  • 2026-05-05 — Productive gym session (Sazzad + Anirudh).
  • 2026-04-28 — Isaiah (init cofounder) intro’d Sazzad to Anirudh (Isaiah’s friend / workout buddy).
• Mutual connections / warm path: Init Intelligence cofounder Isaiah → Anirudh Nair (friends / workout buddies) is the entire warm path today. ^[extracted from CRM]
• Personal & rapport notes (firm-level): Base10 is mission-driven and data/engineering-forward — they prize “purpose is key to profits,” back beyond-SV/diverse founders, and run their own internal AI tooling (Base11). The firm’s brand is automation that helps the 99%.
• Live stage: tracked in the CRM (Google Sheet) — not duplicated here.

Cross-check vs existing wiki

• No prior mention of Base10 (or Nahigian/Ajao/Anirudh) anywhere in the vault before this page (grep clean except an unrelated node_modules hit). Fully additive — no contradictions.
• One adjacency to flag (not a conflict): Base10 co-led “The Mobile-First Company” with Lightspeed (Nov 2025). Lightspeed is already an active init fundraise relationship (Amber Yang); the two firms co-invest, which is a normal positive (potential syndicate signal), not a conflict. No competitor-of-init is on Base10’s known cap tables.

Related

Anirudh Nair · Init Intelligence · Lightspeed (co-investor) · Amber Yang (Lightspeed contact)

Pass 2 deal pattern (2026-05-25)

Exhaustive ~18mo pull (Nov 2024 → May 2026). Full source-tagged rows: /Users/sazzad14/seed-market-scan/firms/base10-partners.csv (21 data rows; ~16 net-new beyond Pass-1’s 5). Spine = Goldilocks AI deal table (goldi.ai/intelligence/vc/base10-partners) cross-checked against TechCrunch/VentureBeat/Axios/PRNewswire + regional press (LatamList, Italian/Spanish trade) + firm releases; every row triangulated ≥2 sources.

• Seed lead-rate: Base10 leads or co-leads essentially EVERY seed/pre-seed it does — ~14 of 15 in-window early-stage deals (~95%). This is a stronger lead profile than Pear. Led outright (seed/pre-seed): Traza ($2.1Mpre-seed),Spott($3.2M), InfiniteWatch ($4Mpre-seed),ThePromptingCompany($6.5M), Throxy ($6.2M),DarwinAI($4.5M), JotPsych ($5M),Duranta($7M), Camber ($4M),Tenor($5.4M), Sightglass ($3M,Base10-incubated),TheMobile-FirstCompany($12M). Co-led: Denki ($4.1M,w/Shine),Pillar(€12M,w/Earlybird).SeriesA/Bcontextleads:Belfry($12M A), Greenboard ($15.5MA—\ast alsoledtheseed\ast ),JetHR(€25M),Lexroom(€16.2MA),Mendel($35M B).
• Check / stage: seed/pre-seed checks cluster $3M–$7M (outliers: Mobile-First $12M,Pillar€12Mco-led);firmhasclearlygrownpastits2020"$500K–$5M.” They write the first institutional check and stay on through Series A (Greenboard, Slide show seed→A→B continuity).
• Cadence: roughly 1+ led seed/pre-seed per month, plus larger A/B follow-ons; Goldilocks avg disclosed round $21.2M(skewedbylaterrounds),$1.3B AUM.
• Sector mix = the thesis fit: Base10’s “automation for the Real Economy / 99%” shows up as a dense run of agentic back-office automation — Traza (AI procurement workers), Throxy (managed outbound-sales-as-a-service, pay-per-meeting), Spott (AI recruiting agents), Denki (financial-audit automation), JotPsych (agentic EHR), Sightglass (IR/DDQ automation), Darwin AI (sales/support agents), InfiniteWatch (agentic CX), Pillar (construction back office), Duranta (landscaper ops), Tenor (AI manager coaching). Geography is deliberately global (US + Italy/Spain + Brazil/Argentina) — a US-only sweep misses ~1/3 of the book.
• Back-office-automation seeds that pattern-match init’s wedge: Traza and Throxy are the two closest — Traza is a near-mirror (“AI workers automate procurement, human-in-loop, sit on top of existing systems, value-for-value trials”) and Throxy sells a MANAGED OUTCOME not a tool (pay-per-meeting), the same “managed outcome, not another tool” framing init uses. Denki (audit), Spott (recruiting ops), Sightglass (finance back office) and InfiniteWatch (agentic CX) round out a portfolio in init’s adjacent category.
• Partner attribution: named where possible — Caroline Broder led Throxy; Rexhi Dollaku (GP) led Darwin AI; Adeyemi Ajao (MP) sits behind the Base10-incubated Sightglass. Founder press releases reliably confirm “led by Base10” but frequently omit the individual partner (weak field).
• Best data channel: Goldilocks AI deal table (cleanest spine — stage/amount/date/role) + regional trade press by geography (LatamList/Contxto for LatAm; Italian/Spanish outlets + Axios Pro for EU) + PRNewswire/BusinessWire founder releases. Goldilocks understates amount on some rounds (Throxy showed $5.3M;truth$6.2M) and mislabels co-leads as “lead” (Denki). COULDN’T-GET: “TaxDown” ($4M, Apr 2025, stage/role blank in Goldilocks — could not triangulate Base10’s role; likely a bridge/secondary).
• Cross-firm note: Base10 led Camber’s $4Mseed\ast afterPearVCledits$1.5M pre-seed* — the two seed funds share at least one cap table. And Base10 led The Mobile-First Company (Lightspeed only participated — corrects Pass-1’s “co-led”), a positive syndicate signal given init’s Lightspeed relationship.