1517 Fund

1517 Fund is a venture capital firm founded in 2015 by Danielle Strachman and Michael Gibson, who also co-founded the Thiel Fellowship with Peter Thiel in 2010. The firm backs college dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists at the earliest stages of their companies — often before founders have formally identified as such. It makes initial investments ranging from $50,000 at the R&D/idea stage to $1,000,000 for deep tech or sci-fi seed-stage companies, with an average pre-seed check of $400,000; it will lead pre-seed rounds. Focus areas include software, hardware with a data component, deep tech/sci-fi tech, and biotech. The firm has deployed $175M+ in committed capital across four flagship funds and 15+ SPVs, and has backed over 100 portfolio companies including Luminar, Loom, Lambda, nTop, and Atom Computing. In addition to capital, 1517 operates the Medici Program (micro-grants of $1,000+) and a community of 6,000+ hackers, makers, and scientists. Founders can apply via a short contact form on the homepage; the team reviews all submissions and typically responds within a few days for in-thesis founders.