Causation Ventures

All investment decisions are made by the two partners, James F. O'Brien III and Jason Freedman. Both are former Y Combinator founders who built and sold their own startups before launching the fund. As of early 2025, Freedman announced he was stepping back from active investing to join a portfolio company as a full-time operator, leaving O'Brien as the primary decision-maker. The firm has not announced a replacement or expansion of the partnership.

Deal flow comes primarily through the Y Combinator network, where both partners are alumni, and through direct founder referrals from the portfolio. Because the firm writes pre-seed checks into companies that have not yet raised institutional capital, much of the sourcing happens before competitive processes begin. The partners emphasize personal relationships with founders and do not rely on broker-driven deal flow or inbound cold pitches.

Causation Ventures makes only direct investments into operating companies. The firm does not commit capital to other venture funds and has not launched a fund-of-funds vehicle. Its $15 million 2013 fund is structured exclusively for direct pre-seed and seed-stage equity investments.

The firm exclusively targets pre-seed and seed rounds, typically investing $250,000 to $500,000 into rounds under $2 million. It does not lead later-stage rounds or operate a follow-on reserve model. Portfolio companies that require growth capital are introduced to larger institutional investors by the Causation team.

The firm's intentional non-scale is its structural differentiator. Unlike many YC-alumni funds that have grown into multi-stage platforms or raised successively larger vehicles, Causation has remained a single $15 million fund with a two-partner team. This architecture means the firm does not need to deploy large amounts of capital or add non-partner investors, which it argues keeps incentives aligned with founders raising their first institutional round.