Conviction

Conviction is a venture capital firm that backs early-stage AI companies, often as their first investor. It combines capital with hands-on support and a network for founders turning AI models into products. Its Embed program gives early founding teams investment, compute credits, fundraising and hiring workshops, and access to a founder community. Beyond investment, Conviction offers recruiting initiatives and Commit, a fellowship for early-career AI builders.

Sarah Guo founded Conviction in 2022 after nearly a decade at Greylock. Mike Vernal joined as general partner in 2025, bringing experience as a Sequoia investor and a product and engineering executive at Meta. The firm's Software 3.0 thesis centers on building software by manipulating foundation models. That investment approach spans chips, data infrastructure, developer tools, research labs and AI applications, rather than treating AI as a single application category.

Conviction's portfolio includes Baseten, Cognition, Harvey, Mistral and Sierra. The firm advertises investment checks of $1 million to $25 million. Embed offers a $250,000 investment through an uncapped, no-discount MFN SAFE or at a recent round's price. Conviction closed Fund II with $230 million in capital commitments in 2025, expanding the capital available for its AI investment strategy.