Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $150 million fund in 2022, the firm wrote checks ranging from $1 million to $2 million, which the general partners Anamitra Banerji and Gaurav Jain argued helped companies grow faster.
The firm’s strategy worked. Today, its 200-company portfolio has a collective valuation of over $13.5…