How AI is Empowering Solo GPs in Venture Capital (Part 1)

Welcome to a series of deep dives on a fascinating topic.

Its a long one with a lot of detail so here is a summary of the long form article:

• Solo General Partners (Solo GPs) on the rise: A Solo GP is a single-person venture fund manager who raises capital from LPs and invests independently. New infrastructure and democratized VC knowledge now allow these individuals to handle tasks once requiring a team.

• AI as a force-multiplier: Artificial intelligence tools are enabling Solo GPs to operate with the speed and scale of larger firms. From sourcing deals to managing portfolios, AI augments human insight rather than replacing it, helping Solo GPs “punch above their weight” with data-driven efficiency.

• Deal sourcing with AI: Solo GPs can leverage AI to scan vast datasets and networks for promising startups, uncovering opportunities beyond their personal network. For example, relationship intelligence software surfaced a warm intro to a startup founder that would have been overlooked otherwise, and big-data platforms monitor millions of companies to flag “hidden gem” investments.

• Streamlined due diligence: AI assists in analyzing pitch decks, financials, and even lengthy technical documents in minutes, allowing a lean one-person team to diligence deals as rigorously as a multi-person firm. AI-driven analysis can spot red flags (e.g. cash flow anomalies) that a Solo GP might otherwise miss.

• Data-driven portfolio construction: AI tools help Solo GPs plan and construct their investment portfolio with quantitative rigor. Platforms like AngelList’s Projector use proprietary data and AI to model optimal portfolio strategy and pacing, guiding emerging managers on check sizes, reserves, and diversification.

• Real-time portfolio monitoring & support: Once investments are made, AI-driven analytics track portfolio company KPIs in real time and alert the GP to trends or problems early. This empowers Solo GPs to proactively support founders (e.g. flagging a dip in user retention and suggesting fixes) much like an entire support team would.

• Smarter LP reporting and relationships: Solo GPs can harness AI to automate investor updates and customize reports. AI dashboards now provide LPs with transparent, real-time views of performance and even tailor communications to individual interests. This high-touch reporting builds LP trust without requiring a dedicated IR staff.

• Outsourcing operations with tech partners: To stay lean, Solo GPs are outsourcing back-office operations (fund admin, compliance, accounting) to specialist providers. For example, Phoenix Fund Services – a women-led, tech-focused fund administrator – handles these operational tasks using modern software, allowing Solo GPs to focus on deals. This kind of partnership ensures institutional-quality operations and reporting for one-person firms.

Introduction: Rise of the Solo GP

In recent years, Solo GPs have become a notable force in venture capital. A Solo GP (Solo General Partner) is an individual who raises a venture fund on their own and is the sole investment decision-maker. Unlike angel investors using personal capital, Solo GPs pool money from Limited Partners (LPs) and often write sizable checks, sometimes even leading rounds, all without the backing of a traditional partnership. The concept was popularized around 2020 (coined as “solo capitalist” by VC Nikhil Basu Trivedi) to describe solo fund managers raising funds and competing with established firms. What makes this model appealing is its agility and personal touch: with no partnership consensus needed, a Solo GP can move at founder speed on investments, and their personal brand and expertise become a magnet for deals.

What makes this model appealing is its agility and personal touch: with no partnership consensus needed, a Solo GP can move at founder speed on investments, and their personal brand and expertise become a magnet for deals.

Several trends have enabled the rise of the Solo GP. Venture infrastructure has evolved – today there are platforms and services that handle much of the heavy lifting of running a fund, from entity setup to compliance. In fact, “growing infrastructure and democratization of VC knowledge” now allow Solo GPs to manage cap tables, track investments, raise capital, and handle fund admin tasks that previously required an entire back-office team. Tools like AngelList, Carta, and others provide out-of-the-box solutions for fund operations. This means an emerging manager can launch and run a fund largely on their own, tapping external support as needed.

Crucially, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changer for Solo GPs. AI-powered tools are augmenting what one person can do, making it feasible to source investments, perform due diligence, and support a portfolio at a quality level comparable to larger VC firms. As one VC professional put it, “AI is not replacing human insight in venture capital—it’s enhancing it,” streamlining everything from deal sourcing to portfolio management and offering predictive insights for smarter decisions. In other words, AI serves as a force-multiplier for Solo GPs, automating grunt work and surfacing intelligence so that a single GP can “run a top-tier process without a team”. It’s no longer optional to leverage these tools – the number of data-driven VC firms jumped ~20% from 2023 to 2024 – and Solo GPs in particular stand to gain by adopting AI early.

AI serves as a force-multiplier for Solo GPs, automating grunt work and surfacing intelligence so that a single GP can “run a top-tier process without a team”

In the rest of this article, we’ll dive into how AI is empowering Solo GPs at each stage of the venture process: from finding deals and vetting startups, to constructing and managing a portfolio, to keeping LPs happy. We’ll also discuss how Solo GPs are outsourcing operations (with a shoutout to Phoenix Fund Services) to stay lean and efficient. The goal is to give emerging managers a conversational, tactical look at real-world examples of AI in action and how you can leverage these innovations to run a successful one-person VC firm.

AI in Deal Sourcing

For any VC, and especially a Solo GP, sourcing quality deal flow is the lifeblood of the fund. The challenge as a solo investor is that your personal network and bandwidth are limited – you can’t be everywhere or meet every founder. This is where AI-driven deal sourcing is a huge unlock. AI tools can scan far beyond a human’s reach, combing through databases, social media, and other signals to pinpoint promising startups that match your investment thesis. In effect, AI becomes an always-on scout, filtering the noise of thousands of companies to surface the handful that deserve your attention.

AI tools can scan far beyond a human’s reach, combing through databases, social media, and other signals to pinpoint promising startups that match your investment thesis.

One approach Solo GPs use is deploying relationship intelligence and CRM AI to maximize their existing network. For example, Tejas Vijh of Boomerang Ventures describes how his team uses Affinity (an AI-powered CRM) as a “relationship whisperer.” The software analyzes all their firm’s emails, calendar invites, and contacts to map connections that aren’t obvious at first glance. In one case, Affinity’s AI “highlighted a warm lead to the founder of a promising AI startup—a connection I might have overlooked otherwise.” By mining communication data, the tool revealed that someone in their network already knew this founder, enabling a quick introduction. For a Solo GP, leveraging such AI insight means you won’t miss hidden opportunities sitting in your Rolodex; the machine finds the weak ties so you can focus on turning them into strong leads.

Beyond personal networks, AI can cast a wider net across the startup ecosystem. Large VC firms have built in-house systems (or use external platforms) to monitor global startup activity – a playbook Solo GPs can borrow through SaaS tools. A notable example is EQT Ventures’ in-house AI platform “Motherbrain,” which monitors over 10 million companies and pulls data from dozens of sources to spot patterns indicating a high-potential startup. Motherbrain has directly driven investments by flagging startups that weren’t on the partners’ radar. Michael Suswal, co-founder of Standard Cognition, recounted that EQT reached out because “Motherbrain informed us we had to talk to you,” a connection that wouldn’t have happened through traditional networking. This underscores how AI-driven sourcing can uncover “hidden gems that no one else sees”. While a Solo GP likely won’t build a Motherbrain from scratch, they can use off-the-shelf tools that offer similar data-crunching superpowers – from Crunchbase’s predictive search, to startup scouting platforms like Tracxn or Merlin that use AI to track millions of companies.

AI can also watch for market signals and emerging trends that inform sourcing. Products like PitchBook now incorporate AI analytics to identify spikes in activity or investment in certain sectors. In practice, this is like having a research analyst on call: during one deep dive into health-tech deals, PitchBook’s analytics “flagged a surge in teletherapy platforms,” tipping off Boomerang Ventures to a growing trend early. A Solo GP armed with such insights can be ahead of the curve, pursuing themes that data suggest are taking off (before they become obvious). By cross-referencing trend data with what AI scouting tools find, you get a well-rounded picture of where to fish for the next catch.

A Solo GP armed with such insights can be ahead of the curve, pursuing themes that data suggest are taking off (before they become obvious).

AI in deal sourcing helps level the playing field for Solo GPs. It automates the top of the funnel – crunching huge datasets, monitoring news and social media, scoring inbound pitches – so that high-potential deals bubble up to your attention. Instead of spending countless hours in spreadsheets or scouring LinkedIn, a Solo GP can rely on an AI-powered flow of curated opportunities, and invest their time in building relationships and conviction around the best prospects. The result is a faster, more efficient sourcing process that ensures you don’t miss out on great deals simply due to lack of eyes and ears on the ground.

AI in Due Diligence

Once a potential deal is in the pipeline, the next challenge for a Solo GP is due diligence – evaluating the startup’s team, product, market, traction, and financials to decide if it’s investment-worthy. Diligence can be incredibly time-consuming; traditionally, larger VC firms assign teams of associates or analysts to deep-dive a startup’s data room, run reference calls, and research the industry. As a Solo GP, you have to tackle all these tasks yourself – but AI can act as your analyst-on-demand, dramatically reducing the manual workload and ensuring you don’t miss critical details.

A big pain point in diligence is sifting through mountains of information. Here, AI excels at digesting large, unstructured documents and extracting the insights you need. A great example comes again from Boomerang Ventures’ experience: when faced with a dense 50-page technical whitepaper from a health-tech startup, Tejas Vijh turned to an AI assistant (ChatGPT) for help. He fed the document to the AI and in minutes received a coherent summary of the core technology and key points. What would have taken hours of reading was distilled instantly, freeing up his time to focus on higher-order analysis and follow-up questions. For a Solo GP, using AI this way means you can ramp up on complex domains quickly – whether it’s understanding a novel AI algorithm, a biotech trial result, or a detailed patent filing – without being an expert in each area from the start.

For a Solo GP, using AI this way means you can ramp up on complex domains quickly – whether it’s understanding a novel AI algorithm, a biotech trial result, or a detailed patent filing – without being an expert in each area from the start.

AI can also automate and enhance the financial and operational analysis in diligence. For instance, specialized AI tools (or even clever use of spreadsheets with machine learning add-ons) can ingest a startup’s financial statements and flag anomalies or risk indicators. In practice, this might look like an AI-driven model scanning the company’s accounting data and highlighting irregularities – say, an unexplained jump in expenses, inconsistent revenue recognition, or customer churn that doesn’t match reported metrics. Boomerang’s team mentions using AI-powered risk assessments to analyze financial data and flag potential red flags like cash flow inconsistencies or market volatility. Imagine having a virtual forensic accountant comb through the books while you sleep – that’s what AI can do behind the scenes, so you wake up to a report of anything fishy. For a Solo GP without a staff of analysts, this kind of automated scrutiny is invaluable. It provides an extra set of eyes that never tires, helping ensure you catch issues that could otherwise slip through cracks in a one-person diligence process.

 Boomerang’s team mentions using AI-powered risk assessments to analyze financial data and flag potential red flags like cash flow inconsistencies or market volatility.

Another area where AI shines is market and competitive research. Modern language models and search AI (like Bing Chat, Perplexity, etc.) can quickly gather intel on a startup’s space: they’ll summarize competitor offerings, pull market size figures, and even compile sentiment from news or social media about the product. Tejas noted that by layering insights from tools like Perplexity (an AI research assistant), his team could “cross-check market conditions and competitive landscapes” during diligence. This means a Solo GP can rapidly develop a 360-degree view of a company’s context – customers, competitors, macro trends – without spending days googling or commissioning research. You can ask an AI, “What are people saying about X’s product?” or “What was the funding history and outcome of similar startups to Y?” and get synthesized answers that inform your investment memo.

Importantly, AI can help mitigate bias and blind spots in due diligence. As humans, we might get swayed by a charismatic founder or a personal anecdote, but an AI will bluntly focus on data. Some Solo GPs use standardized scoring checklists enhanced by AI – for example, inputting a startup’s metrics to get an objective score or even using NLP to evaluate founder resumes and team composition. By “focusing on data-driven metrics, AI helps ensure startups are evaluated based on their merits rather than superficial factors,” acting as a safeguard against our unconscious biases. Of course, the GP’s judgment is still critical – AI isn’t making the investment decision – but it provides a more objective baseline and can challenge your assumptions (e.g., if your gut is positive but the data signals concern, it prompts you to dig deeper).

By “focusing on data-driven metrics, AI helps ensure startups are evaluated based on their merits rather than superficial factors,” acting as a safeguard against our unconscious biases.

AI empowers a Solo GP to conduct thorough and efficient due diligence that rivals what much larger firms can do. You can move faster on deals without sacrificing rigor – a huge competitive advantage in a fast-moving market. As one emerging manager put it, these AI tools are “indispensable… They enable us to perform due diligence at the same level as much larger firms, despite our limited resources.” By leaning on AI to crunch the data, summarize documents, and surface risks, a Solo GP can focus their energy on the nuanced parts of diligence that truly require human judgment – like assessing founder vision and team dynamics – armed with far more information than they could reasonably gather alone.

AI in Portfolio Construction

Before making any investments, a fund manager needs a game plan: how many companies to back, how much to invest in each, what reserves to keep for follow-ons, and what overall portfolio strategy will yield the best chance of great returns. This art-and-science of portfolio construction is especially crucial for emerging managers and Solo GPs, who must be very intentional with limited capital. Traditionally, portfolio construction might rely on a GP’s past experience or basic spreadsheet models, but now AI and data-driven platforms are taking portfolio design to the next level – helping even first-time fund managers model scenarios and optimize their strategy.

One tangible example is AngelList’s Projector tool, which was built to assist GPs (particularly those using AngelList’s platform) in portfolio planning. Projector “uses proprietary data about the broader venture market, AI, and an easy-to-use UI to make portfolio construction and management simpler and faster for fund managers.” In practice, what does this mean? Essentially, AngelList has aggregated a vast dataset of venture outcomes and uses AI/ML to simulate how different portfolio configurations might perform. As a Solo GP, you could input your target fund size (say $10M), your planned number of investments (perhaps 25-30 startups), average check size, etc., and then allow the system to run Monte Carlo simulations or other predictive models using historical venture data. The AI can help answer questions like: What happens if I concentrate more capital in fewer companies versus spread it out? How should I allocate initial vs. follow-on reserves to maximize the chance of a big win? What portfolio size is statistically likely to produce a top-quartile fund return? By exploring these scenarios, an emerging manager can make data-informed decisions about their strategy rather than just guessing or copying another fund’s approach.

As a Solo GP, you could input your target fund size (say $10M), your planned number of investments (perhaps 25-30 startups), average check size, etc., and then allow the system to run Monte Carlo simulations or other predictive models using historical venture data.

AI’s advantage in portfolio construction is its ability to consider many variables and scenarios quickly. For instance, you might task an AI model with optimizing for a certain outcome (e.g., 3x fund return with 90% confidence). It can iterate through countless combinations – perhaps suggesting that investing in ~30 companies with an average ownership of X% and reserving 50% of the fund for follow-ons yields a better risk/reward profile than other configurations, given industry benchmarks. It might even incorporate current market trends (for example, noticing that seed-stage hit rates have changed, or exit timelines have lengthened in recent years) into its recommendations, whereas a static model might not. The result is a more robust portfolio strategy grounded in data.

Even outside formal tools like Projector, Solo GPs are using AI in creative ways for portfolio planning. Some employ spreadsheet add-ons with AI to forecast outcomes: for example, using GPT-4 to generate distributions of possible exits for each hypothetical investment and then summing up the results to see the range of fund returns. Others tap into platforms like AI-enabled analytics from fund-of-funds or LP advisors that share modeling frameworks. The key point is that you don’t have to fly blind or rely solely on intuition – AI gives you a co-pilot to navigate portfolio design. As one VC observed, “being data-driven and using AI… has become essential to how modern venture firms run”, and that starts from how you construct the portfolio from day one.

Ultimately, AI in portfolio construction helps Solo GPs answer critical questions with greater confidence. It’s like having a seasoned quant advisor by your side, running stress tests on your plan: Are you taking enough shots on goal? What’s the probability your fund will hit a $100M outcome? Do you need to adjust your strategy if the market shifts? This guidance is especially reassuring for emerging managers who don’t have a long track record to draw upon. With AI’s insights, you can present a credible, well-modeled strategy to your LPs (which can help in fundraising), and you can deploy capital in a disciplined way that balances risk and reward. In short, AI helps Solo GPs construct portfolios that are not only well-diversified but also smartly aligned with their goals and the realities of the market – a foundation for long-term success.

That's a lot to chew on!

This article is continued in our next post!

Sources:

1. VC Stack – Deep Dive: Rise of the Solo GPvcstack.iovcstack.io

2. Boomerang Ventures (Tejas Vijh) – How AI is Transforming Venture Capitalboomerang.vcboomerang.vcboomerang.vcboomerang.vcboomerang.vc

3. Affinity – 9 AI tools empowering venture capital firms in 2025affinity.coaffinity.co

4. Axios – EQT’s Motherbrain AI platformaxios.comaxios.com

5. AngelList – Portfolio Construction and Managementangellist.com

6. Kruncher – AI Analyst for Solo GPs (product page)kruncher.aikruncher.aikruncher.ai

7. Phoenix Fund Services – Company Website / Press Releasephx-fs.combusinesswire.com

8. LinkedIn – Solo GP tools / AngelList Venturelinkedin.com