Bison Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, has closed its second fund with US$160 million in committed capital. The new vehicle, Fund 2, follows the firm’s US$135 million debut fund and will target Pre-Seed through Series B investments. Bison plans to back deeply technical founders who are bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world.
A Thesis Built on Real World Intelligence
Bison Ventures is focusing Fund 2 on what it calls Real World Intelligence, a category the firm estimates represents a US$50 trillion market across the global economy. The investment thesis centers on moving AI beyond digital applications into physical systems such as energy, food production, factories, biology, and infrastructure. The firm argues that AI’s first decade transformed software, while the next era will be defined by intelligence embedded in the physical economy.
The firm will invest from Pre-Seed through Series B in founders building non-incremental technology. Bison’s team includes professionals with backgrounds in robotics, semiconductor manufacturing, energy, biology, materials science, and infrastructure. The firm believes these technical systems are early in unlocking AI’s full value for building, healing, and powering the physical world.
Portfolio Momentum and Early Fund 2 Deployments
Bison points to several existing portfolio companies as evidence that its thesis is taking shape. Zyphra is developing frontier AI models and infrastructure on AMD’s full-stack compute platform, while Cobot’s collaborative robots have logged more than 12,600 production hours and moved over 40 million pounds of material. Vivodyne has launched what Bison describes as the world’s largest human biological datacenter, and Thinking Machines has released its first open-weights model and secured a gigawatt-scale partnership with NVIDIA.
Fund 2 has already begun deploying capital into companies that illustrate the firm’s focus on physical world innovation. Grid Aero has built a full-scale autonomous cargo aircraft, while Great Sky is translating more than a decade of superconducting research into chips that it says could offer one million times more efficient compute than traditional GPUs. Inner Logic has shown that surgical AI trained entirely in simulation can transfer to real patient anatomy, following success in an autonomous gallbladder removal.
Founding Partner Perspectives
Founding Partner Ben Hemani said the firm is still early in unlocking the full value of AI to improve the physical world. He expects rapid acceleration in AI use for manufacturing affordable goods, developing effective drugs, and producing sustainable energy. Hemani noted that Fund 1’s thesis validated this inflection point and that Fund 2 is already backing founders creating new categories in large, well-defined markets.
Founding Partner Tom Biegala said Bison was started five years ago to back companies that may appear contrarian today but will look inevitable in hindsight. He argued that a new technology has to change value by an order of magnitude to become difficult to displace. Biegala added that Fund 1’s success reinforced the firm’s conviction in backing step-change solutions.
About Bison Ventures
Bison Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in Real World Intelligence, the frontier where AI collides with the physical economy. The firm partners with founders reimagining how people build, move, and heal, along with the energy and compute innovations that support those systems. Founded in 2021 by Tom Biegala and Ben Hemani, Bison brings deep technical and operational experience to companies building at the frontier of technology.
With its second fund, Bison Ventures is doubling down on the belief that the next major opportunity in artificial intelligence lies outside the digital realm. The firm’s US$160 million Fund 2 provides additional capital to support technical founders working across complex physical industries. By backing companies in robotics, biology, compute, and autonomous systems, Bison aims to capture value in markets that are essential to the global economy and poised for transformation.