The AI startup market has taken on a “barbell” shape, with capital clustering at two extremes: Massive late-stage megarounds for a few dominant players, and increasingly large, high-risk bets on early-stage players. The result: The middle is stretched thin. For many AI companies with promising technologies, solutions and established products, this dynamic has created a harsh funding climate. Those that fall in the “middle," with proven products, steady growth, and missions tied to impact, are squeezed between the two extremes. Without the capital runway of a mega round or the speculative appeal of a moonshot, these companies face undue pressure to unsustainably accelerate growth and drift from their mission. Some have stalled, and others face hard choices just as their technologies are beginning to demonstrate real value. We believe that a family capital-backed venture studio model, complete with a dedicated support team of operators and hands-on advisors, is the right solution for many promising companies stuck in the 'thin middle.' If that sounds like you, reach out to us: palmventurestudios.com
Palm Venture Studios
Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
Austin, TX 7,970 followers
Second-chance capital and strategic support for early-stage startups.
About us
Palm Venture Studios is the only venture studio focused on "second-chance" capital for early-stage startups. We partner with leaders whose startups are stuck, and we provide the critical funding and strategic support needed to help their businesses succeed. Our investment approach is sector-agnostic. Instead, we invest in visionary founders and early-stage startups poised to reshape industries and drive meaningful change. Our unique strategy solves a critical need for startups. With patient capital and operational support, we help promising startups find their path to profitability and greater impact. If you or someone in your network could benefit from our investment, contact us at hello@palmventurestudios.com If you or someone you know would be interested in working with us, contact us at talent@palmventurestudios.com
- Website
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palmventurestudios.com
External link for Palm Venture Studios
- Industry
- Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
- Company size
- 11-50 employees
- Headquarters
- Austin, TX
- Type
- Privately Held
Locations
Employees at Palm Venture Studios
Updates
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As Emilio De la Vega notes, traditional VCs often feed capital to high growth companies, but starve late-breakers. Ever more often, we see institutional capital focused on early returns focused raising the next fund. For many founders, that means pressure to burn fast and chase growth at all costs, even if it potentially comes at the expense of building a healthy, sustainable business. At Palm, we believe there’s a better way. Reach out to learn more about our approach: https://lnkd.in/edid_Rnp
For most startups, the “burn to grow” strategy has become increasingly unsustainable. Too often, founders push for the next fundraising milestone instead of building a durable, long-term business. The goal becomes the next check, not a resilient company. At Palm Venture Studios, we take a different approach. We provide patient, long-term capital and partner with founders who may have been caught in that cycle before. With the right resources and a strategic reset, great companies can regain their footing. If you’re a founder who has raised in the past but is tired of chasing the next round, reach out - I’d be happy to chat and see if we’re the right fit. https://lnkd.in/eYkTsCMB
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As featured in the Wall Street Journal: Only 11% of startups over the last five years have successfully reached a Series A. In 2024, that number was less than 3%. One stuck point for many founders is the timing of the AI boom. Startups launched before the rise of genAI are now finding it difficult to pivot, often needing to replatform or rethink their businesses while newer AI-native companies accelerate past them. Timelines between funding rounds have also extended significantly, now an average of 2.5 years. This means startups now must build in more robust capital efficiency, manage burn, and reach profitability more quickly. At Palm, we partner directly with founders to provide patient capital, strategy and support to pivot, and operational guidance to build resilient businesses. As an investor, we look for impact-driven companies facing these critical inflection points. If it sounds like you could be a good addition to our venture studio’s portfolio, reach out to us. We want to hear from you. Reach out here: https://lnkd.in/e3y5APm9 Read more in the WSJ here: https://lnkd.in/dqENEjg7 #StartupInvesting #VentureCapital #WallStreetJournal
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Countless pieces of perfectly good furniture and home goods end up in landfills each year, a challenge small, dedicated resale shops work hard to address. kashew, the newest member of Palm’s portfolio, provides these businesses with the tools and services they need to build and grow their digital storefronts. With one-click inventory uploads, same-day local delivery, and insured nationwide shipping, Kashew helps resellers increase revenue by up to 20% in just one month. Small business and sustainability are at the heart of Kashew’s mission, and we’re partnering closely with their team to strengthen operations, localize impact, and explore new product categories. Palm's John Fitch, says: “We’re thrilled to support Kashew as they expand into new product categories and unlock even more value for conscious buyers and resellers alike.” Learn more about Kashew: kashew.com Learn more about how we invest: palmventurestudios.com
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A new clinical milestone from our portfolio company, Goode Health! Published in the peer-reviewed journal Physiological Reports, a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study demonstrates that one scoop of Goode Health per day delivers significant improvements across critical biological markers: • +22% enhancement in vascular function • −9% reduction in total cholesterol • Reduction in mean arterial blood pressure These benefits were observed after just two weeks of daily use, while participants in the control group experienced no measurable improvements. Fewer than 1% of the 150,000+ supplements available on the market are validated by randomized controlled trials, so we are proud that Goode Health stands apart as a revolutionary superfood nutrition product that cuts through the noise and meets the highest standards of scientific rigor and efficacy. Read more about the study here: https://lnkd.in/eS3MeHmX
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Congratulations to RightHand Robotics, Inc, part of the broader Palm Ventures portfolio, on their feature in a leading industry trade about their transformative role in Staples next-generation fulfillment strategy. As the article by Roberto Michel outlines, Staples has integrated autonomous robotic picking cells co-developed with RHR into its fulfillment operations. When the system launched in 2021, the cells could handle just 20% of the SKU mix. Today, that number has tripled to 60%, with Staples leadership confident they'll soon reach nearly 100% of small SKUs. RHR’s work with Staples is a prime example of what happens when best-in-class AI and robotics meet the demands of real-world operations, a core focus of the entire Palm Ventures network. Learn more about our RightHand Robotics here: https://lnkd.in/eCcgFFuG Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/e-nKAPH3
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Behind every pitch deck is a story. Join us for a night of candid founder stories, open discussion, and real connections on July 14 in our Boston, MA venture studio. In collaboration with Sbur and J.P. Morgan, we’re hosting an evening where founders open up about what it takes to build, break, and bounce back. To kick off Tech Crunch’s return to Boston with All Stage, we’ll begin our event with a live roundtable, where a group of experienced founders will share their toughest challenges and lessons learned. Afterward, the mic will open to the room: any founder can share a current challenge and tap into the collective wisdom of the community. Our team, along with Sbur’s Tony Zhang and JPM's Christian Williams, look forward to seeing you there. 📅 Date: July 14 📍 Where: Somerville, Massachusetts (location revealed upon registration) 📋 Seats: Limited – approval required & token-verified registration Register to join our “Startup Confessions” night here: https://lu.ma/ii7bgt8n
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U.S. climate-tech funding fell nearly 50% year-over-year in Q1 2025, according to Business Insider. Early-stage companies are scaling back or relocating amid policy uncertainty — a setback for innovation even as fluctuating global temperatures continue to drive demand for low-carbon and clean energy solutions. As a result, many promising climate-tech startups — including those that have already raised capital — are now stalled due to shifting policy and investor retreat. At Palm Venture Studios, we invest in promising early-stage companies who are stuck, often due to investor retreat or external pressures, rather than fundamental flaws in their impact-driven idea. Our model is designed to provide patient family capital and strategic support to companies at this inflection point. Climate-tech startups affected by subsidy withdrawal or investor skepticism represent exactly the type of undercapitalized, impact-driven innovation we aim to support. We work with founders to stabilize their operations, clarify their go-to-market strategy, and help teams regain momentum. In climate tech and across innovation in this industry, we believe long-term value remains strong despite near-term headwinds. If you're building in climate-tech and need strategic capital to move forward, reach out to us. We’d like to hear from you. Read the article in Business Insider here: https://lnkd.in/ePgKRh8j.
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We agree, Jake Tamarkin. At Palm Venture Studios, we invested in Everyday Life because we believe life insurance needs companies that are built for the long term. As Jake notes, life insurance has long required patient capital, something traditional venture funds often struggle to accommodate. But where others see a slow cycle, we see durable growth and lasting impact. Everyday Life’s mission to make life insurance more accessible, transparent, and modern reflects the kind of founder vision and market discipline we look for. Learn more about Palm Venture Studios here: palmventurestudios.com
An interesting theme emerged at the Insurance Innovators USA conference earlier this week, relating to how changing investor preferences are beginning to shape a brighter future of life insurance. Across a couple of speakers and in different contexts, we discussed how innovation within life insurance has been constrained by investors that need to see returns faster than the industry is built to provide. But we have good reason to expect that the pace of innovation will increase soon, as alternative investors that operate on a longer time horizon are seizing the opportunity. The topic first arose during an insightful keynote address by Brent Korte (CMO, Ameritas), where he noted that in recent years publicly-traded carriers like Principal Financial have been facing pressure from activist investors to get out of the capital-intensive business of underwriting life insurance. He noted the opportunity this creates for mutuals and privately-held carriers that don’t face the same pressure from public company investors, whose expectations have been shaped by the quarterly reporting cadence that public companies are required to follow. It came up again a few minutes later, in the panel I participated in with Jason Gross (CSO, TruStage) and Michael Vellat (COO, AAA Life Insurance Company Life) and expertly moderated by PwC’s Kanchan Sukheja. Michael observed that for many years now, life insurance startups received substantially less venture capital (VC) than their property & casualty (P&C) brethren. Life insurance is less attractive to VCs because they typically have ten years to invest their clients’ money and earn a return on it, while the multi-year cash flow cycle of life insurance reduces the time available for a startup to launch and scale. Also, it occurs that interest rates are likely another factor causing shorter-term investors to blanch at life insurance. Life insurance profitability is highly sensitive to interest rates, and while rates have risen in recent years, they are still historically low and it's debatable if in this rate environment life insurers are actually creating economic value. On the flip side, this means bargains aplenty for investors who can be patient enough for interest rates to return to historically “normal” levels. Longer-term and value-oriented investors are starting to take advantage. Family offices and other, single-investor firms can be more patient than a traditional VC are investing in more life insurance startups (e.g., the investment we at Everyday Life Insurance just took from Palm Venture Studios). Mature insurers continue to attract interest from privately-held asset managers like Apollo Global Management, Inc. and KKR that value a life insurer’s reserves as a stable source of investable assets for their core business. A long winded way of saying that my big learning from this excellent conference is that for life insurance, the best is yet to come. Let’s go! 🚀
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Farmhouse Delivery continues to make a splash in Austin for its comeback story and one-of-a-kind offering of fresh, local produce. Founder and President Stephanie Scherzer and Culinary Director Carlos Guerra appeared on air with Austin’s KXAN to showcase the brand’s seasonal assortment of farm-to-door produce and prepared meals. On air, Stephanie and Carlos introduced Farmhouse’s newest offering: A line of 15 locally sourced meal kits, prepared foods, condiments, and spices, a transformative new offering following Palm’s relaunch of the brand. “At Farmhouse, we’re building a more sustainable food system by partnering with farmers who practice methods that honor the land, from regenerative agriculture to humane animal husbandry,” said Stephanie in KXAN’s feature. “Our in-house Farmhouse Kitchen team transforms excess high-quality local ingredients into ready-to-enjoy meals, reducing food waste while providing convenience. From 15-minute meal kits and pantry staples to elegant holiday mains—our chef-led team makes it easy to eat high-quality, ethically produced food at home.” Watch and read Farmhouse’s appearance here: https://lnkd.in/e98yVBQQ
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