How to Pitch Bonfire Ventures

Bonfire Ventures is a Los Angeles seed firm built around one job: leading the seed round of a B2B software company. Its portfolio page lists Boulevard, ChowNow, Branch, Spekit and Cube among its active companies, and Comparably (acquired by ZoomInfo), Bitium (acquired by Google) and Burstly (acquired by Apple) among its exits. In 2025 it closed a $245 million fourth fund and reframed its thesis around AI-native companies.

What Bonfire Is

Bonfire leads about 95% of the rounds it joins, usually at seed and sometimes at an early Series A, and it typically takes a board seat in the rounds it leads. Its first check is $2 million to $6 million, which is Bonfire's share rather than the whole round, and it reserves 35% of the fund to keep investing as a company grows. The firm makes around 10 to 12 new investments a year, two or three per investing partner, so the portfolio is small on purpose.

Two things follow from that shape:

• Bonfire is a lead, not a filler. If you already have a lead and want a small check, it is the wrong firm; if you need someone to price the round and sit on the board, it is built for that
• With a dozen deals a year across five investors, each partner is choosing two or three companies. The bar per deal is high and the firm says each of its six investment areas "has its own bar"

What Bonfire Looks For

1. AI as the foundation, not a feature. Bonfire's thesis page puts it plainly: "AI-native isn't a feature. It's a different kind of company." Its investment criteria ask whether AI is the foundation of the product and whether customers depend on it. Its gate question: "When a better foundation model drops, does it help or hurt?"

2. A company that compounds. "We look for companies that become harder to compete with as they grow." The firm names proprietary data, agent-native infrastructure and services turned into software as the shapes it expects to compound.

3. An AI-native CEO who knows the industry from inside. Bonfire does not expect every CEO to write code, "but we do expect them to work with AI firsthand." Its founder criteria pair that with industry knowledge: you know the customer's workflow because you have lived it.

4. Existential need. The second gate question on its criteria page: "Is the customer buying out of existential need - or nice-to-have?"

5. B2B only. Consumer businesses, foundation models, chip design and frontier science are outside its focus by its own statement. The six areas it does name are Vertical AI Software, AI + Proprietary Data, Services-to-Software, Fintech Infrastructure, Agent-Native Infrastructure and Structural Reshaping.

What Bonfire Needs to See

Bonfire publishes a traction bar, which most seed firms do not. Its criteria page asks for a live product with customers and revenue, typically about $250K ARR, "though the founder matters more than the number." Its FAQ adds that it can invest before revenue when conviction in the founders and the opportunity is exceptional. Read that as: revenue is the default evidence, and the exception is earned by the team.

The FAQ also lists what it wants a pitch to cover:

• The customer problem and why it matters
• What you are building
• Why your team knows this problem
• What you have learned from customers so far
• Your stage and fundraising plans

Geography is a legal test, not a location test: the company must be a US entity (Bonfire says it also backs select Canadian teams), and the team can be anywhere.

How to Get a Bonfire Meeting

• The Pitch Us form: linked from the navigation of every page on bonfirevc.com. This is the published front door
• A warm introduction: the FAQ says it is "helpful, but it isn't required," and names portfolio founders, fellow investors and the Bonfire network as where intros usually come from
• The right partner: Bonfire lists each partner's focus areas on its team page. Mark Mullen covers fintech, services and logistics infrastructure; Jim Andelman vertical and SMB software; Tyler Churchill vertical AI, industrials, fintech and commerce; Brett Queener describes his focus as anything with an awesome, AI-native founder
• AI Club: a monthly show-and-tell series Bonfire runs with Wildfire Systems for leaders and builders exploring AI, which is a way to be seen before you raise

What Gets You Passed

• Consumer, foundation models, chips or frontier science: outside the focus by the firm's own statement
• A company not incorporated in the US: the entity test is explicit
• AI bolted on: if a better foundation model would hurt you rather than help you, the thesis page says you are not the company it is describing
• Nice-to-have: Bonfire asks whether the customer buys out of existential need; a pitch that cannot answer that question fails its second gate

A second track: Pitch Protocol

Warm paths into a fund like Bonfire take time. Pitch Protocol is not a route into Bonfire; it is a second track you can run alongside your outreach. Applying is free, your own AI agent submits one application in about ten minutes with no web form, and the funds in our network whose thesis matches reach out to you directly. Apply to the First 100 Founders Cohort →