Pre-seed and Seed, $500K–$1.5M.
Vidya Raman’s prior investments
What others said no to
During Covid, every cybersecurity company was pitching a Ransomware Protection Guarantee that few VCs knew how to tell apart.
Why we backed it anyway
Ritesh and team approached the problem with the most disarmingly grounded perspective–that no one can guarantee complete ransomware protection, but they envisioned the best way to contain an attack.
Acquired by
What others said no to
AI eval was one of the most crowded categories of 2025, written off by nearly every investor as too crowded to bet on.
Why we backed it anyway
Nir Gazit and Gal Kleinman bet that the market didn't need another proprietary eval tool — it needed an open standard everyone could build on.
Acquired by
What others said no to
IoT Security had been written off by VCs for years as too fragmented to win.
Why we backed it anyway
Tom and Mike saw that no other vendor had built a product that scaled within and across enterprises and set out to do that.
Acquired by
Accenture01
The future of enterprise software is bespoke, not one-size-fits-all.
Bespoke systems are hard to build and secure without new infrastructure and security tooling.
02
The gap between simulation and reality is the next major infrastructure buildout.
Tooling for physical AI is decades behind traditional software engineering.
03
The biggest AI opportunities sit in regulated, historically non-technical industries.
These industries can't tolerate a full system rebuild and don't need one.
Our problem-first approach lets us go past the surface-level read that leads many investors to reject ideas by category alone — you work with an investor who's actually engaged with the problem.
The same problem-first mindset shapes our introductions. Rather than a static roster of advisor names, we connect you with people likely to become early adopters of what you're building.
Vidya has built and sold products before founding FirstByte — that experience makes her both a critic and a champion when you're deep in the trenches.
FirstByte invests at the pre-seed and seed stage.
FirstByte invests in enterprise infrastructure and cybersecurity, physical AI, and AI applications that modernize regulated, historically non-technical industries without requiring a full system rebuild.
FirstByte typically writes checks between $500K and $1.5M.
FirstByte was founded by Vidya Raman, Founder & Partner. FirstByte is a problem-first venture fund investing at the pre-seed and seed stage.
You can pitch FirstByte directly by emailing vidya@firstbyte.vc — no warm introduction required.
The Founder to Fortune podcast and FirstByte were both started by Vidya Raman. The podcast features conversations to help founders and soon-to-be-founders learn from others' experiences. In keeping with that mission, the podcast will feature founders who aren't necessarily connected to FirstByte.