Formation

Co-founders Solly Garber and Leeor Mushin lead the firm's investment activities. Garber previously launched Strada, a seed-focused vehicle built out of a single family office, while Mushin was a principal at Floodgate. The firm's website presents them as the core decision-makers, with no other investment professionals publicly named.

The firm defines the 'Formation Stage' as the period of discovery, growth, and conviction that precedes a company's institutional scaling. It argues this stage has been mispriced by VCs who treat pre-seed and seed checks as option bets. Formation's model is built around longer relationship arcs and concentrated underwriting during this window.

Formation is structured as a venture capital firm. Its co-founder Solly Garber previously ran Strada, which began as a single family office before transitioning to seed-stage investing, but Formation itself is not a family office.

The firm states it leads pre-seed rounds and participates in seed rounds. Its positioning emphasizes early conviction and close founder relationships rather than passive co-investment, suggesting a preference for setting terms at the earliest stage.

Formation publicly criticizes the financialization of early-stage venture, calling out the practice of writing many small checks as a misaligned incentive structure. Its public manifesto describes this as treating founders like 'option bets' and positions Formation as a deliberate alternative.

Through Solly Garber's prior firm Strada, the team wrote early checks into Headway, Assured, Nourish, Traba, and Krea. Formation's own portfolio companies are not publicly listed, and the firm has not disclosed a full portfolio page.

The firm operates from New York, San Francisco, and Miami, indicating a US-focused investment mandate. No specific international investment activity has been publicly disclosed.