SignalFire

SignalFire invests in applied AI startups from pre-seed through Series B, combining capital with recruiting tools and operational support. Its proprietary Beacon AI platform supports both its investors and portfolio companies. Beacon Source helps investors discover and research startups using signals such as team composition, growth, and competitive positioning. Beacon Talent lets founders and recruiters search for candidates by role requirements, seniority, and education, and examine how other companies’ teams developed as they grew.

SignalFire began as a bootstrapped startup in 2013 and launched its first fund in 2015. Its founding leadership includes Chris Farmer, CEO, and Ilya Kirnos, co-founder and CTO, previously a Google software engineer. Engineering is integrated into investment work: its systems match people and companies across data sources, while its machine-learning work uses weak supervision, proxy metrics, and time-series validation to address investment outcomes that are rare and take years to emerge.

In 2025, SignalFire closed over $1 billion in new fund capital, bringing assets under management to approximately $3 billion. In its 2026 State of Talent report, the firm reported that Beacon AI tracked more than 650 million individuals and 80 million organizations. That dataset supports investment research, recruiting, and its published analyses of hiring trends and organizational structure.