Essence VC
VC Fund
Seattle, United States
Essence VC is a VC fund in Seattle focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Enterprise fund focusing on 1st time technical founders building in the infra / developer space
- Total investments:
- 57
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 4%
- Fund size:
- $8M
- Last fund:
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Essence VC invests in
Stages Essence VC invests in
Countries Essence VC invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Round size
- Seed
- $3.1M–$17M
- Pre-Seed
- $650k–$4.5M
- Series A
- $14M–$27M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 26 (46%)
- Artificial Intelligence 26 (46%)
- Information Technology 12 (21%)
- Machine Learning 9 (16%)
- SaaS 5 (9%)
Stage
- Seed 33 (58%)
- Series A 12 (21%)
- Pre-Seed 9 (16%)
- Series B 2 (4%)
- Funding Round 1 (2%)
Country
- United States 38 (67%)
- Germany 2 (4%)
- Israel 1 (2%)
- Denmark 1 (2%)
- Australia 1 (2%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Timothy Chen
General Partner
|
General Partner | Total investments: 17 | Find email |
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| RadiantOps surfaces the engineering work worthy of a leader's attention, with the changes behind it, so they can act without digging. | $7M / Seed / Sep 16, 2026 | ||
| Fearn is an AI-native patent drafting platform that lets inventors and companies prepare patent applications in minutes instead of 50+ hours, with flat-rate pricing and no third‑party AI models. | $5.5M / Seed / Jun 10, 2026 | ||
| Comfy develops and maintains open-source software centered on generative AI workflows, primarily through its core product, ComfyUI, a node-based application for building and managing AI-driven content creation pipelines. The platform enables users to construct visual workflows that generate images, videos, 3D assets, and audio by connecting modularcomponents, enabling repeatable, adjustable outputs rather than one-off prompts. Its tools include a workflow engine, extension manager, custom node registry, and supporting interfaces such as command-line utilities and automation features, which together form a flexible ecosystem for AI development and usage. The company emphasizes enabling users to create and customize their own solutions, often without requiring coding, and supports both local execution and cloud-based usage depending on user needs. Comfy's software is used by a broad range of individuals and teams, including developers, artists, and organizations, to build reproducible and scalable generative AI workflows. | $30M / Series B / Apr 24, 2026 | ||
| Unkey operates as an open-source API authentication and authorization platform, primarily catering to user-facing APIs. The platform enables developers to create, verify, and manage API keys with low latency. Unkey's services are designed to help developers secure, manage, and scale their APIs. The company also offers an Elixir SDK, providinga simple example of its use. Unkey is also involved in solving API authentication for the next generation of developers. | $4.5M / Seed / Apr 23, 2026 | ||
| Standard Kernel builds AI technology that makes the core software running on GPUs and other accelerators faster and more efficient. | $20M / Seed / Mar 11, 2026 | ||
| Magic Patterns provides software tools that enable teams to prototype product ideas using AI-generated designs. The platform includes features for creating SVG and CSS patterns, gradients, and organic shapes, which can be applied to digital assets such as product visuals and social media content. Users can modify components and designs within theplatform’s editor and export outputs to React or Figma formats. Magic Patterns also offers a Chrome extension that converts website elements into React components for use in development workflows. | $6M / Series A / Nov 11, 2025 | ||
| Nilo is a collaborative 3D platform that works across desktop, mobile, Discord, and Telegram. It combines generative AI with world-building tools, allowing users to generate assets, characters, animations, and code from natural language or drawings. The result: a radically simplified creation experience that lowers the barrier to entry andaccelerates how quickly new ideas can be built, tested, and shared.It’s creation at the speed of culture: whether spinning up a game inspired by today’s viral sound, turning a group chat joke into a playable world or crafting a custom hangout, Nilo transforms imagination into interaction — instantly and collaboratively.Nilo’s key features include:Text-to-3D generation: Create characters, environments, and code from prompts or images. Browser-Based: Nilo runs entirely in your browser - no installs, no downloads, no friction. Voice-enabled coding: A built-in AI-powered code editor that supports spoken commands and natural language for playful, social programming. Real-time multiplayer: Co-create and play with friends instantly.Nilo was founded in April 2024, bringing together veterans from Fortnite, Twitch, YouTube, Snapchat, Microsoft, Adobe, Blizzard, VRChat, Rec Room, and major VFX projects such as Avatar and Star Wars. | $4M / Seed / Sep 24, 2025 | ||
| Cline is a developer of an open‑source AI coding agent that automates software creation tasks within integrated development environments. It supports planning, file editing, terminal operations, and web browsing, all under user supervision. Cline integrates with multiple AI models and uses client-side architecture so code and API usage stay underuser control. The product includes Plan Mode and Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration, enabling exploration of codebases, defining project‑specific rules, and accessing external systems. It also offers team features like shared credits, admin controls, usage analytics, and audit logging, built on top of the same transparent, open‑source core. | $27M / Series A / Jul 31, 2025 | ||
| Clarify is an AI-powered writing tool that accelerates the academic writing process. | $15M / Series A / Jun 25, 2025 | ||
| Next-gen CRM, unifying customer data, automation & analytics. | Jun 25, 2025 | ||
| See all 57 investments → | |||
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FAQ
What does Essence VC invest in?
Essence VC invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 57 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Essence VC's check size?
Essence VC typically joins rounds of $3.1M–$17M at Seed, $650k–$4.5M at Pre-Seed and $14M–$27M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Essence VC participates in.
How do I contact Essence VC?
Public channels for Essence VC include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at Essence VC?
The team at Essence VC includes Timothy Chen (General Partner). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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