Root Ventures

Overview

San Francisco seed firm, run by engineers, that leads first rounds for technical founders in deep tech and hard tech. Initial checks are about $3–5M, and roughly two-thirds of each fund is held in reserve for follow-ons. Form D filings show offering targets of $150M for Root Ventures III (2021) and $250M for Root Ventures IV (2025). No amounts sold or final closes have been reported for those funds.

Notable portfolio companies

• Dusty Robotics
• Mashgin
• Instrumental
• nTopology
• Zed
• Daily
• Wildtype
• Skycatch

Funds

LPs on the record

2 private foundations list on their latest IRS Form 990-PF, and 1 other LP reports holding Root Ventures’s funds.

• The Ressler Family Foundation Private foundation · 2 funds
• Golden Family Foundation Private foundation · 2 funds
• New Mexico State Investment Council State investment fund · 1 fund

Find LPs that back firms like this one in Hottub’s LP Intelligence: ranked by overlap, with what each holds and how to reach it.

Reported fund performance

As reported by public LPs that invested in these funds, net of fees. “Versus vintage” ranks each fund against every other fund of the same vintage in that LP’s report, mostly private equity and venture funds. Open a fund for its cash flows and full peer ranking.

New Mexico State Investment Council: New Mexico State Investment Council Private Equity Performance Updates: Fund Summaries (Active Funds), as of March 31, 2026. Net IRR and net multiple since inception as printed in the fund summaries of the quarterly performance updates that Mercer prepares for the Council (data source given as Invient), published in the Council's public meeting materials. The fund summaries head the two columns "Net" (Multiple, IRR); their total rows equal the "Net Multiple" and "Net IRR" of active commitments in the reports' dashboards. The net multiple is used as TVPI. The fund summaries give only committed capital, exposure (NAV + unfunded), net multiple and IRR for each fund, so contributions, distributions, total value and DPI are blank; contributions and distributions are reported by program and strategy only. Committed capital is reported in $ millions to one decimal and converted to whole dollars. Vintage year is defined by the reports as the year of the fund's first cash flow. 27 of the newest funds are marked N/A or NM (not defined in the reports) and lack an IRR, a multiple or both. The IRR of The Veritas Capital Fund IX, L.P. is printed as "#######" (not readable) and is blank. Frazier Healthcare Growth Buyout Fund XI, L.P. is printed with a negative multiple, imported as printed. Two reports are combined: the National Private Equity Program (175 active funds, $11,121.7 million committed; 32 Venture Capital, 93 Buyout, 33 Growth, 17 Special Situations) and the Strategic Venture Capital Program and New Mexico Private Equity Investment Program (Legacy) (83 active funds, $2,346.3 million committed; 76 Fund Investments, 5 Co-Investment Funds, 1 Catalyst Fund, 1 Recovery Fund). The second report covers the Council's New Mexico-focused venture and private equity commitments, including its own co-investment, catalyst and recovery vehicles. Active funds only: liquidated and sold funds are reported in aggregate, not by fund. The Private Debt, Real Estate and Real Assets reports in the same materials are not imported. View source