Fund IV — Now deploying · Vintage 2026

Backing the next
generation of unavoidable
platforms.

MinimallyUseful is a multi-stage venture firm capitalizing the structural inevitabilities of late-modern life. We invest in scalable human dependency, post-human productivity, and the quiet infrastructure of the world to come.

AUM $4.2B
Active companies 47
Realized exits 11
Gross IRR (since '19) 38.4%
DPI / TVPI 1.9× / 4.7×
View the portfolio → Read the manifesto
FUND IV · OPEN AUM $4.2B IRR 38.4% PORTFOLIO 47 EXITS 11 MOIC 4.7× NEW · MIDDLER.AI SERIES C ESSAY · POST-HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY DPI 1.9× VINTAGE 2026 FUND IV · OPEN AUM $4.2B IRR 38.4% PORTFOLIO 47 EXITS 11 MOIC 4.7× NEW · MIDDLER.AI SERIES C ESSAY · POST-HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY DPI 1.9× VINTAGE 2026
01 — Philosophy

We do not predict the future. We pre-monetize it.

Inevitability over invention

We invest behind trends so structural they require no marketing budget. Demographic decay, attention scarcity, ambient compliance.

Dependency as defensibility

The strongest moat is a workflow your customer can no longer remember performing themselves.

Aesthetics of the unavoidable

We fund companies that feel inevitable in the first thirty seconds. Brand is balance sheet.

Capital with conviction

We write $250K–$40M checks, lead rounds, and stay through liquidity events both planned and otherwise.

02 — Portfolio

Selected positions, Fund III–IV.

All 47 companies →
1 · Consumer Series A

Pursuit

Pursuit has separated the hobby from the burden of doing it. Its AI learns, practices and progresses on your behalf, leaving you with the identity, the talking points and none of the friction. We believe it is the most important consumer platform of the decade.

Valuation
ARR
Pre-revenue
2 · Human Capital Series A

The Yard

The Yard has solved the most consequential labor-market failure of the AI era, and it has done so by refusing to retain anyone. We believe it may be the most important institution of the decade.

Valuation
ARR
Pre-revenue
3 · Infrastructure Series B

Understory

Understory has built enterprise compute on the oldest network on Earth: 73 acres of living mycorrhizal substrate. It is carbon-negative, eight centuries old, and has never experienced an outage. We believe it is the most important infrastructure company of our lifetime.

Valuation
$540M
ARR
Pre-revenue
03 — Industries we disrupt
Synthetic Labor

AI-native organizations where the org chart is a prompt.

Ambient Compliance

Consent surfaces, automated agreement, regulatory abstraction.

Attention Capture

The post-engagement economy and its discontents.

Domestic Infrastructure

Subscription primitives for things your grandmother considered free.

Predictive Wellness

Quantifying decline before the user notices it.

Liquidity of Self

Identity, reputation, and emotion as tradable instruments.

04 — Field Notes

Essays from the partnership.

Quarterly memos, market philosophy, and the occasional confession. Read by 184,000 operators, allocators, and people who probably shouldn't be.

The full archive →
As notionally referenced in
The Atlantic Sub-Stack
Bloomberg Verticals
FT · Alphaville
Wired Discontinued
Monocle Annex
Stratechery
05 — From the founders
"We were told to build the future. We chose, instead, to underwrite it."
— M. Holloway-Vance, Managing Partner · Letter to LPs, Q1 2026