PI

Picks & Shovels — Pre-Seed & Seed VC Firm (Up to $100K Checks)

VC
Santa Monica, CaliforniaWebsite

Picks & Shovels is a Pre-Seed, Seed venture capital firm based in Santa Monica, California investing in Other, Fintech, Developer Tools. The firm typically writes Up to $100K checks and has 14 portfolio companies in our records.

Check size
Up to $100K
Portfolio
14 companies on record
Partners
26 listed
Stage
Pre-Seed, Seed
Sectors
Other, Fintech, Developer Tools, Consumer
HQ
Santa Monica, California
AUM
Not in our records

Last verified: 2026-09-02

How to approach: cold outreach ok
Stage

Pre-Seed, Seed

Check Size

Up to $100K

Portfolio

14+ companies

Team

26 partners

Investor activity
Investments in last 12 months: 0

Investment Thesis

Solo-GP fund focused exclusively on infrastructure/tools for crypto and fintech, especially ‘picks & shovels’ enabling builders rather than consumer apps or speculative tokens.

How Picks & Shovels invests

Picks & Shovels is a vc firm based in Santa Monica, California. The firm invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed stages, with a focus on Other, Fintech, Developer Tools, Consumer. It does not invest in Consumer Apps, Tokens without product-market fit.

Picks & Shovels typically writes checks of Up to $100K per investment.

Picks & Shovels has backed 14 companies in our records, including Mastra, Sunbeam, Eventual.

Partners & Team

JS

Josh Schlisserman

Solo GP

Crypto infrastructure
Fintech tools
Developer tools
MA

Max Abram

MA

NW

Nichole Wischoff

NW

BP

Brexton Pham

BP

JL

Julia Lipton

JL

JZ

Jessica Zaltulove

JZ

LG

Luke Girgis

LG

JS

Joshua Schlisserman

GP, Operator-Investor

Chief of Staff at Mastra, the leading TypeScript framework for building AI agents, backed by Spark Capital, Gradient VC, SV Angel and Basecase VC. My role centers on sales, GTM, and customer support/success. Before — Series (Employee #1) Chief of Staff at Series, which builds tools for institutional allocators. I helped scale to our first $1B in AUM, ran all enterprise sales, and built the GTM organization. Backed by 776, Fin VC, Caffeinated Capital and Basis Set Ventures. Before — Preside (Co-Founder) Workflow automation for public safety and government, backed by Caffeinated Capital, Basecase VC, Banter Capital and Basis Set Ventures. We never found product-market fit — but I learned how to invest in the next generation of public-sector founders. I specialize in taking companies from $0 to $10M+ in ARR, finding problem-market fit, and intentionally scaling an organization. I plan to share those learnings with the next generation of picks-and-shovels founders.

RT

Ray Tonsing

Caffeinated Capital

VG

Varun Gupta

Caffeinated Capital

SG

Sumeet Gajri

SG

MG

Mark Ghermezian

MG

LX

Lan Xuezhao

LX

BL

Bobby Lo

BL

RH

Ricky Horwitz

RH

BB

Brendan Baker

BB

AA

Armaan Ali

AA

ER

Esteban Reyes

ER

TG

Tiger Global Fund

TG

MB

Marc Bhargava

MB

JK

Josh Kuzon

JK

EF

Evan Fisher

EF

AT

Ariana Thacker

AT

CC

Curtis Cheng

CC

T

Tasti

TZ

ZB

Zakarie Bridge

ZZ

Industry Focus

Invests In

Other
Fintech
Developer Tools
Consumer

Does Not Invest In

Consumer Apps
Tokens without product-market fit

Portfolio Companies (14)

Other

MA

Mastra

Pre-Seed
SU

Sunbeam

Pre-Seed
EV

Eventual

Pre-Seed
SL

Slingshot AI

Seed
CO

Concrete Protocol

Pre-Seed
SK

Skip (acq)

Seed
PA

Paxos Labs

Pre-Seed
FL

Flux AI

Seed
DE

Default

Seed
AI

AIHG

Seed
How to pitch Picks & Shovels
  • •Raising at Pre-Seed, Seed? You're squarely in their sweet spot.
  • •Lead with your fit in Other, Fintech, Developer Tools — the sectors they actively back.
  • •Size your ask to their typical Up to $100K check.
  • •cold outreach ok
  • •Address your outreach to a specific partner, such as Josh Schlisserman, Solo GP.
  • •A warm introduction beats a cold email. Get matched and request an intro.

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