How One Investor Raised $25 Million to Back Early-Stage Tech Startups

Ashley Smith closed a $25 million fund for her investment firm, Vermilion Cliffs Ventures, in just four months. She raised it mostly from people who had already backed her previous fund, which suggests they were satisfied with how she invested their money TechCrunch.

This new fund is nearly twice the size of her first one, which was $13 million and launched in February 2025 Fortune. She plans to invest in early-stage companies working on artificial intelligence tools, cybersecurity, and software built for developers. Her typical investment will be between $500,000 and $1 million per company. She has already invested in six companies and plans to back at least 25 more over the next two and a half years.

Smith runs this fund alone. She makes all the investment decisions herself, without partners or a committee to consult. This is uncommon at her fund size, and even more rare for women in the venture capital world TechCrunch.

Her background and what she's done

Smith's first fund invested in 35 companies, including one called Keycard that focuses on cybersecurity and another called CopilotKit that builds AI infrastructure tools. Given that she raised $13 million and backed 35 companies, her average investment per company was small — typical of funds that make many small bets early on, rather than a few large ones.

Smith's career background is unusual for a venture investor. She was not an engineer or a business school graduate who moved directly into investing. Instead, she worked in marketing for well-known technology companies: Twilio, Facebook, GitHub, GitLab, and Parse (which Facebook bought). She held senior marketing roles, including Chief Marketing Officer positions. Before she started her fund, this Parse acquisition gave her direct experience watching a company get bought — valuable knowledge for an investor.

Smith pitches her value to founders as someone who understands how to sell developer tools and security products. Those are notoriously hard to sell because they need buy-in from technical teams and often move slowly through company purchasing processes. A marketing expert whose only training ground was exactly these kinds of products has something specific to offer.

What a quick fundraise tells us

Raising $25 million in four months, mostly from people who had already backed her first fund, indicates her first fund likely performed well enough that her original investors wanted to give her more capital without a long deliberation. Solo investors like Smith face more investor concern about key-person risk — the worry that everything depends on one person. If that person becomes unavailable, the fund has no backup plan. When existing investors quickly commit more money, it is often a sign they trust that person enough to accept that risk.

The sectors Smith is targeting — AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and developer tools — align with where a lot of venture capital is flowing right now. There is particular enthusiasm for AI tools that help businesses use artificial intelligence safely and effectively.

The longer perspective worth considering is whether the solo investor model actually works. When solo investors first became common, many venture experts questioned whether one person could do all the work that a traditional venture firm does: evaluate startups carefully, help the companies they fund succeed, and spend time raising money. Smith's ability to raise nearly double her first fund's size in a compressed timeline, with money from existing backers, does suggest the model can work for smaller, specialized funds. It has not replaced traditional venture firms with multiple partners, but it seems to be a sustainable path forward for focused investors.

For startup founders in AI, cybersecurity, and developer tools who are raising money in the next two and a half years, Smith's fund represents one more investor actively writing checks in their space.