The Artemis Fund

The Artemis Fund stands apart in the venture capital landscape precisely because it was built outside the Silicon Valley echo chamber. Founded in 2019 by three women General Partners Stephanie Campbell, Diana Murakhovskaya, and Leslie Goldman Tepper from Houston the firm has quietly become one of the most active seed-stage investors in women-led and underrepresented founders. In March 2024, The Artemis Fund closed its second fund at $36 million more than doubling its initial capitalization and signaling strong LP confidence in the platform. Understanding treasury management and cash flow management is valuable for any founder.

The firms investment thesis is rooted in a simple but powerful conviction: technology should create prosperity for all families and individuals, not just those already well-positioned to benefit. This means The Artemis Fund actively seeks founders who are building solutions for overlooked markets and underserved communities. The firm leads seed rounds typically investing $500K to $3 million per company with the capacity to write larger checks in follow-on rounds for stand-out performers.

What makes The Artemis Fund distinctive among seed investors is its operational support model. Every portfolio company receives access to an outsourced CFO advisor at no additional cost a benefit that helps founders sharpen capital deployment decisions and build financial discipline from day one. This is not a passive investment approach. The Artemis Fund has built its reputation on showing up for founders, making intros to customers and partners, and actively supporting portfolio companies through hiring challenges and growth inflection points.

The firm has offices in New York, Texas, Massachusetts, and Nevada, with a portfolio spanning more than 30 companies across fintech, commerce enablement, and care-tech sectors. For founders building in spaces where systemic gaps create opportunity, The Artemis Fund has demonstrated both the capital and the conviction to back early-stage bets that traditional VCs often overlook.

Understanding The Artemis Funds specific thesis, portfolio composition, and what the partners actually look for in a pitch can dramatically improve your odds of securing a meeting. This guide is built from public statements, portfolio data, and reporting on the firms investment activity to help you approach The Artemis Fund with genuine insight rather than generic positioning.

The Artemis Fund invests at the seed stage with a clear thesis: backing founders who are building technology for resilient families, individuals, and businesses. The firm particularly gravitates toward companies addressing systemic gaps in financial services, care infrastructure, and commerce that have historically been underserved by traditional venture capital. Understanding net revenue retention benchmarks is valuable for any founder.

The three General Partners Stephanie Campbell, Diana Murakhovskaya, and Leslie Goldman Tepper each bring operator experience to the firm. Campbell previously led the Houston Angel Network; Murakhovskaya and Goldman Tepper both came from backgrounds in law and corporate strategy before becoming investors. This combination of network access and operational savvy informs how the firm approaches its portfolio, which is primarily located outside major coastal tech hubs.

The Artemis Fund invests across several interconnected sectors. In fintech, the firm looks for companies democratizing access to wealth-building tools, banking, or credit. In commerce enablement, they back founders modernizing how goods move from producer to consumer or how entrepreneurs access the tools to sell online. In care-tech broadly defined the firm invests in childcare platforms, maternal health solutions, elder care services, and HR tools that support working families.

What distinguishes The Artemis Fund from other seed-stage investors is the explicit emphasis on investing in communities and founder profiles that have been systematically overlooked. The firm has made a deliberate bet that founders building for overlooked markets often have a deeper understanding of their customers problems and more motivation to solve them rigorously. The firm calls this the alpha pack thesis finding founders who are assembling exceptional teams and product strategies to achieve category leadership.

The firm prefers to lead or co-lead rounds, taking an active board role and deploying its network to support portfolio companies. While the firm evaluates the standard metrics early-stage investors care about team quality, market size, product traction, and competitive differentiation it explicitly does not require companies to have already reached significant revenue before investing. Early traction matters, but The Artemis Fund has shown willingness to back companies at the concept or earliest product-market fit stages when the founder profile and market timing are compelling.

The firm also offers every portfolio company access to an outsourced CFO advisor as part of the investment package. This is a deliberate structural decision: The Artemis Fund believes that early-stage founders often lack the financial infrastructure to deploy capital efficiently, and that a CFO perspective helps companies avoid common mistakes in burn management, pricing strategy, and unit economics improvement.

The Artemis Fund has maintained an active investment pace even as the broader venture market contracted in 2023 and 2024. The firm deployed its $36 million Fund II across multiple new investments in 2024, participating in rounds for companies like Avela Health, a platform addressing maternal and family health needs, and Salvo Health, which is building infrastructure for holistic health coaching. Both investments reflect the funds care-tech thesis in action. Understanding managing cash conversion cycles in deep tech is valuable for any founder.

The firms portfolio now exceeds 30 companies, with notable names including HopSkipDrive (a transportation platform for children and families), Hello Divorce (a legaltech platform simplifying the divorce process), and CNote (a fintech unlocking new sources of liquidity optimization for underbanked communities). The diversity of sectors within the portfolio reflects a consistent thesis: The Artemis Fund backs founders who understand a specific pain deeply and are building technology to address it with a differentiated approach.

The firms deal flow benefits significantly from its positioning outside Silicon Valley. Founders in Houston, Atlanta, Dallas, and other emerging startup ecosystems often find The Artemis Fund as a natural first call for seed capital, particularly when they are building for consumer or SMB-facing markets that coastal VCs tend to overlook. The firm has built a strong reputation in these ecosystems, which in turn drives a virtuous cycle of founder referrals.

In addition to new investments, The Artemis Fund actively supports its existing portfolio through follow-on rounds. The firms principals have publicly stated they will continue to back strong performers from their first fund as they progress toward Series A and beyond. This continuity is an important signal for founders considering The Artemis Fund: the firm is building relationships, not just writing checks.

The firms investment activity has also been shaped by its conviction in capital efficiency. In a market where many seed firms have struggled to deploy meaningfully in 2024, The Artemis Fund has stayed disciplined about check sizes and ownership targets. The firm targets meaningful ownership at the seed stage while leaving sufficient reserves to maintain pro-rata in future rounds for winners.

On the operating side, The Artemis Fund has been deliberate about building its own network effects. The firm has formalized relationships with corporate partners, family offices, and strategic advisors who can open doors for portfolio companies in ways that a traditional VC intro might not. This infrastructure is particularly valuable for companies in the care-tech and fintech sectors, where distribution and regulatory navigation often determine success more than product innovation alone.

The Artemis Fund portfolio is notable for its sector diversity and founder quality. The following companies represent the funds thesis in action and have attracted meaningful follow-on capital from other top-tier investors.

CNote, co-founded by Yuliya Tarasava and Cat Berman, is a fintech platform that unlocks new sources of liquidity optimization for underbanked individuals and families. The company addresses the structural problem that billions of dollars sit idle in low-yield accounts because traditional financial institutions cannot underwrite the credit profiles of certain communities. CNotes technology enables alternative data underwriting, opening access to higher-yield products and better financial outcomes for users. The Artemis Fund led CNotes seed round and has continued to support the company as it scales its deposit products and partner distribution.

Hello Divorce, founded by Erin Levine, is a legaltech platform simplifying the divorce process for couples seeking a more affordable and efficient path to dissolution. Unlike legacy divorce firms that bill by the hour and create adversarial dynamics, Hello Divorce provides modular legal services that allow couples to access exactly what they need at a transparent price. The Artemis Fund led Hello Divorces $3.25 million seed round in late 2022, and the company has since raised additional capital and expanded its service offerings to include financial planning components that help clients navigate the transition with greater stability.

HopSkipDrive, co-founded by Carolyn Yashari Becher and a leadership team including Joanna Newman McFarland and Janelle McGlothlin, is a transportation platform designed specifically for families with children. Unlike rideshare services built for individual commuters, HopSkipDrive focuses on the unique safety, verification, and scheduling needs that families encounter when transporting children to school, activities, and appointments. The company has grown to serve school districts and families across multiple metros, demonstrating strong product-market fit in a category that mainstream ride-hailing platforms have largely ignored.

Other portfolio highlights include Gemist (custom wig and extensions, co-founded by Madeline Fraser and Anup Muraka), Upgrade (custom wig and extensions company founded by Britney Winters), Work & Mother (corporate lactation room services), SimpliFed (maternal and infant nutrition platform founded by Andrea Ippolito), and Salvo Health (holistic health coaching infrastructure). Each of these companies reflects The Artemis Funds thesis: building for overlooked needs with founders who have deep personal or professional insight into the problem space.

The common thread across these investments is category understanding and founder motivation. The Artemis Fund consistently backs founders who have direct experience with the problem they are solving or who have assembled teams with domain expertise that cannot be easily replicated. This founder-market fit is one of the strongest signals the firm looks for when evaluating new opportunities.

The portfolios performance has validated the funds thesis. Several companies have raised successful Series A rounds with participation from top-tier institutional investors, and The Artemis Funds ownership stakes have appreciated accordingly. For founders considering the firm, the track record demonstrates that the partners can help companies navigate beyond seed stage and into institutional follow-on rounds.

The Artemis Fund evaluates potential investments based on a combination of founder quality, market characteristics, and traction indicators. While the firm is explicit about its thesis, the evaluation process is not purely formulaic. Founders who can articulate a clear view of their customers problem, their solution, and their path to building a category-leading business tend to resonate strongly with the partners.

Founder quality is consistently the most important factor in The Artemis Funds investment decisions. The firm looks for founders who have direct experience with the problem they are solving, a clear vision for how the market should evolve, and the leadership skills to attract exceptional talent. The partners particularly value founders who can demonstrate that they have thought deeply about competitive differentiation and have a realistic plan for achieving product-market fit before exhausting their seed capital.

Market opportunity is evaluated in terms of both size and accessibility. The Artemis Fund prefers markets that are large enough to support a meaningful business at Series A and beyond, but also markets where access to customers is not controlled by entrenched incumbents with massive distribution advantages. This often means the firm gravitates toward consumer-facing businesses and B2B platforms targeting SMBs or emerging enterprise segments.

Traction indicators matter, but the firm is realistic about what early-stage metrics look like. The Artemis Fund does not require companies to have millions in revenue before investing, but it does want to see evidence that the product is solving a real problem and that customers are finding value. This might manifest as strong engagement metrics, meaningful net revenue retention in subscription businesses, or clear unit economics that improve as the company scales.

Competitive positioning is carefully evaluated by The Artemis Fund. The firm looks for companies with defensible moats whether those come from proprietary technology, exclusive partnerships, network effects, or brand recognition that protects market position over time. For companies without clear competitive advantages, the firm will often decline even if the founder quality and market are compelling.

The scalability of a business model also factors into The Artemis Funds assessment. The firm prefers business models that can grow efficiently without proportional increases in cost, which typically means software platforms, marketplaces, or businesses with strong recurring revenue metrics characteristics. Companies with high variable costs or complex logistics requirements may face more scrutiny, though not automatic disqualification.

Beyond the quantitative criteria, The Artemis Fund is looking for founders who are genuinely passionate about solving the problem they have chosen. The firm has passed on many companies that had strong metrics but where the founders did not demonstrate deep domain expertise or intrinsic motivation. The partners believe that building a category-defining company requires sustained energy and resilience, and they look for evidence of those qualities in every interaction.

Securing a meeting with The Artemis Fund requires a strategic approach, just as it does with any top seed-stage investor. The firm receives a high volume of pitch submissions and has a compact network of relationships that drive a significant portion of deal flow. Understanding how the firm sources deals and what makes a pitch stand out can meaningfully improve your odds.

Warm introductions remain the most effective way to connect with The Artemis Fund. The firm is significantly more likely to meet with founders who come recommended by portfolio CEOs, other investors who have worked with the firm before, or respected members of the entrepreneurial community in their target geographies. Building relationships with the firms portfolio founders before pitching is one of the most reliable ways to get on the partners radar.

The Artemis Fund accepts cold submissions through their website, but the conversion rate from cold outreach is meaningfully lower than from warm intros. If you are pursuing the cold outreach path, ensure your pitch deck clearly articulates why your company fits The Artemis Funds investment thesis, what specific problem you are solving, and why your team is uniquely positioned to execute. Generic decks that could apply to dozens of other companies will not stand out.

When preparing for your meeting with The Artemis Fund, be ready to discuss your market size, competitive landscape, business model, traction metrics, and fundraising plans in depth. The partners are known for asking direct questions about assumptions and will challenge projections that are not grounded in evidence. Practice articulating your thesis crisply, and be prepared to defend your unit economics and customer acquisition cost models.

The Artemis Fund typically takes several weeks to make investment decisions after an initial meeting. Following up is appropriate, but avoid being pushy or demanding immediate responses. Send updates on significant milestones and any material changes to your business, but respect that the partners are managing a process and will come to a decision when they have completed their evaluation.

Building a long-term relationship with The Artemis Fund can be valuable even if your current round does not result in an investment. The firm may be interested in future rounds as your company progresses, or they can provide valuable introductions to other investors who might be a better fit for your current stage. Treat every interaction as an opportunity to build a relationship, not just close a financing.

For founders outside the traditional tech ecosystems, it is worth noting that The Artemis Fund has built its reputation partly on being an accessible resource for underrepresented founders in underserved markets. If you are building in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, or other emerging startup cities, the firm is likely to be more responsive to outreach from your region than coastal VCs who treat these markets as secondary.

While The Artemis Fund invests at the seed stage, the firm expects founders to have a solid command of their financials. This includes understanding burn rate, runway, unit economics, and a realistic path to profitability or the next funding round. Seed-stage investors do not expect polished financials in the way Series A investors might, but they do expect founders to understand the mechanics of their business.

Many first-time founders underestimate the importance of financial preparedness when raising capital. Investors want to see that you understand your business financial mechanics and have realistic expectations for how you will deploy the capital you raise. Founders who arrive at a pitch meeting with a clear financial model and a thoughtful plan for capital allocation make a stronger impression than those who are vague about assumptions.

Working with a fractional CFO can significantly improve your chances of securing funding, especially if you are a first-time founder without a financial background. Professional financial guidance helps you build accurate projections, prepare investor-ready financials, and confidently answer due diligence questions about your unit economics and burn trajectory.

Our team has helped numerous companies raise venture capital and would be happy to discuss how we can support your fundraising efforts. From pitch deck financials to comprehensive financial models, we ensure you are prepared for the investment process and can present your business with confidence.

Financial projections should be realistic and grounded in evidence. The Artemis Fund will scrutinize your assumptions and challenge projections that appear optimistic without basis. Be prepared to explain the data sources behind your forecasts and demonstrate that you have considered multiple scenarios including downside cases.

Understanding your key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential when pitching to The Artemis Fund. The firm will want to see that you track the metrics that matter most to your business and can explain trends in your performance with data rather than narrative. Founders who have a clear metrics framework and can speak fluently about their unit economics demonstrate the kind of operational discipline that seed-stage investors find compelling.

Whether you are preparing to pitch The Artemis Fund or other top seed-stage investors, having professional financials can set you apart from the competition. Our team has helped companies raise hundreds of millions in venture capital and understands what investors look for in financial presentations. The difference between a founder who can speak confidently about their unit economics and one who cannot is often the difference between a term sheet and a rejection.

Exploring other venture capital firms? Our comprehensive collection of VC firm reviews covers hundreds of investors across all stages and sectors.

Each review provides detailed information about investment criteria, portfolio companies, and tips for securing funding. Whether you are looking for seed-stage investors or growth equity firms, you will find valuable insights in our VC firm guides.

Finding the right investor for your startup is crucial to your success. Take the time to research potential investors and understand their investment thesis before reaching out.

Our guides cover major venture capital firms as well as emerging managers that may be a better fit for your companys specific needs and stage.

To learn more about The Artemis Fund's investment thesis, portfolio companies, and team, visit their official website at https://www.theartemisfund.com. The firm is actively deploying capital from its $36 million Fund II and welcomes connections with exceptional founders building for resilient families and businesses across fintech, commerce enablement, and care-tech sectors.