Modern Technical Fund

Modern Technical Fund (MTF) Research Overview Modern Technical Fund (MTF) is a San Francisco-based solo GP pre-seed and seed fund founded in 2025 by Amanda Robson (known as "Robby"). After 9 years investing in early-stage enterprise software at established VC firms (including Cowboy Ventures), Robby launched MTF in June 2024 and officially announced it in June 2025. The fund raised $22M in an over-subscribed close (target was $20M) and has made 7+ investments in cybersecurity and infrastructure companies across the US and Israel. Investment Thesis MTF's thesis is built around speed and technical depth. Robby saw founders moving faster than traditional venture could handle—enabled by AI and software tooling—and built a fund purpose-designed to keep pace. The core bet: the best technical founders in security, data, and infrastructure need a hands-on partner who can lean in from Day 0, make fast decisions (solo GP), and provide genuine GTM leverage through a curated community of technical buyers and sellers. The fund's distinctive edge is its Technical GTM Community—security, engineering, and data leaders from companies like Databricks, MongoDB, Drata, Anthropic, Klaviyo, and Sentry who serve as advisors, validators, and early customers. This gives portfolio founders an unfair advantage going from prototype to product-market fit. Key investment principles: Invest pre-deck, pre-product, and pre-revenue First check investor who leads or co-leads rounds No board seat taken (stays lean and founder-friendly) Invests in both priced rounds and post-money YC SAFEs Working intensively with founders to reach PMF Sector Focus MTF invests exclusively in B2B software for three technical buyer personas: Security: Cybersecurity infrastructure, threat detection, AI-native security workflows, phishing detection, SIEM replacement, agent trust/identity layers. Data: Data observability, data pipelines, analytics infrastructure, data quality tooling. Developer Infrastructure: Open source tooling, developer experience, software reliability, AI code quality, solutions engineering automation. Anti-thesis: Consumer, non-technical B2B, hardware, marketplace businesses. Stage & Check Size Stage: Pre-seed and seed exclusively Check size: $500K – $1M Geography: United States and Israel Ownership target: Not explicitly stated; likely 10-20% at pre-seed/seed Lead Tendency MTF is explicitly a first-check investor that leads or co-leads rounds. Robby states this directly on the website. She also has backed companies as part of larger rounds (e.g., MetalBear's $12.5M round, RunReveal's $7M raise). Recent Activity MTF is actively deploying from Fund I ($22M): November 2025: Led round in Detections.ai (AI + community-powered threat detection) October 2025: Invested in Keycard (trust layer for AI agents) September 2025: Backed MetalBear (AI code reliability; raised $12.5M) July 2025: Partnered with RunReveal (AI-native SIEM replacement; raised $7M) Previous investments (pre-fund, while at prior firm) include Drata (reached $100M ARR in 3.5 years, acquired/scaled rapidly), 6 River Systems (acquired by Shopify ~$450M), Effx (acquired by Figma), and Phiar (acquired by Google). Portfolio Highlights Notable exits: 6 River Systems – acquired by Shopify (~$450M) Effx – acquired by Figma Phiar – acquired by Google Breakout companies: Drata – compliance automation; reached $100M ARR in 3.5 years Dremio – data lakehouse query engine; Series D company Current portfolio (MTF Fund I): Detections.ai – AI-powered threat detection Keycard – AI agent identity/trust layer MetalBear – AI code reliability platform RunReveal – AI-native SIEM Topogy – (network infrastructure) Maestro – developer tooling Fossa – open source license compliance Elementary – data observability Multiple stealth companies in AI observability, AI security, phishing detection, and solutions engineering automation Team Amanda Robson ("Robby") – General Partner (Solo GP) 10 years investing in early-stage enterprise software (previously ~9 years at established VC firms including Cowboy Ventures) Deep focus on technical founders in security, data, and infrastructure Active on X (@robby_mtf) and Substack (MTF Robby) Hosts the "OSS Startup Podcast" (Technical Podcast) Runs the Modern Angels co-investing community (~30 female/non-binary operators as angels) Technical Community (LPs & Advisors) MTF's community is a key value-add differentiator: Ahoy Capital, Level Ventures, Knollwood – institutional LPs Angie Lal – Head of Security Engineering, Anthropic Surabhi Gupta – CTO, Klaviyo David Cramer – Co-Founder, Sentry Meghan Gill – MongoDB Ben Vinegar – (Sentry co-founder) 20+ other security, engineering, and data leaders from top technical companies Decision Process Solo GP with no investment committee. Robby makes all decisions independently. This allows extremely fast decisions—a key selling point for pre-seed founders. Timeline likely 1-2 weeks. Founder Preferences MTF seeks technical founders, specifically: Engineers or technical operators building for technical buyers (security, data, engineering teams) Founders willing to move fast and go deep on GTM early Not required: a deck, product, or revenue at point of first meeting Preferred: founders with a distribution insight or GTM advantage Will back husband/wife co-founding teams and non-obvious bets Robby is notably supportive of female and non-binary founders (all 2022 investments had a female founder). Geographic Focus Primarily United States (San Francisco Bay Area, NYC) and Israel. The fund has already made 2 Israeli investments out of its first 7.