Updated:
Include Ventures
Include Ventures launched in 2020 with a thesis that sits squarely at the intersection of impact and alpha.
Include Ventures
Include Ventures launched in 2020 with a thesis that sits squarely at the intersection of impact and alpha. Co-founded by Taj Ahmad Eldridge, a veteran of early-stage climate and inclusive investing who previously built the cleantech practice at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, the firm was structured from the outset as a fund-of-funds — not a direct investment vehicle. That architecture is deliberate: it lets the firm underwrite emerging managers who themselves have cultural and operational proximity to overlooked founders in energy transition, education, health, and financial technology. The portfolio spans four primary asset classes — venture capital fund commitments, co-investments, direct seed-stage deals, and program-related investments aligned with institutional impact mandates. Geographic focus is North America-heavy, with a tilt toward coastal innovation hubs. Within cleantech, the firm has backed managers targeting everything from grid-edge software to alternative proteins; in healthtech, the emphasis runs toward care-access platforms that serve Medicaid and underserved populations. Eldridge has publicly flagged that the firm evaluates general partners on a dual axis: historical fund performance and demonstrable lived experience in the communities those GPs serve. Include Ventures operates as a lean, distributed team anchored in San Francisco. As a 2020 vintage, the firm is still building its track record and, as of the 2024–2025 cycle, had not publicly disclosed total commitments or deployment numbers. Eldridge is the sole named principal in public records, suggesting a concentrated decision-making structure typical of first-generation emerging manager platforms. No adjacent philanthropic foundation, operating company, or co-investor club has been formally disclosed, though the firm's inclusion mandate naturally aligns it with mission-driven LPs including development-finance institutions, family offices, and corporate impact arms. The structural differentiator for Include Ventures is its role as an allocator-of-allocators, targeting the manager-selection layer rather than the company-selection layer. Most diversity-of-asset-management efforts focus on hiring within existing firms; Include Ventures flips that model by backing new firms outright. If the firm can consistently identify GPs whose portfolios outperform precisely because their sourcing networks are mispriced by the broader market, that would make IV not just a mission vehicle but a genuine edge-of-market fund-of-funds — a category that remains thinly populated by non-institutional actors.
General information
Firm type
Venture Capital
Year founded
2020
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
San Francisco
Corporate office
San Francisco, CA, United States
Principals
Taj Ahmad Eldridge
Co-Founder and General Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Include Ventures?
Taj Ahmad Eldridge is the Co-Founder and General Partner, and is the only named principal in the public record as of mid-2026. The firm appears to operate with a concentrated decision-making structure, with Eldridge leading fund-manager selection, due diligence, and portfolio construction. No investment committee or additional GPs have been publicly disclosed, which is consistent with an emerging manager platform still in its early commitment cycle.
Is Include Ventures a single family office or a fund-of-funds manager?
Include Ventures is structured as a fund-of-funds manager, raising institutional capital to deploy into underlying venture capital funds. It is not a traditional single family office managing personal capital, though its lean team and concentrated leadership share some operational characteristics with first-generation family investment platforms. The firm does not manage a proprietary balance sheet on behalf of a single wealthy family.
Does Include Ventures make direct investments or only fund commitments?
The firm pursues a hybrid model: primary fund commitments to emerging venture capital managers, direct co-investments alongside those managers, and a limited number of direct seed-stage company investments. This blended approach allows the firm to calibrate exposure across the manager-selection and company-selection layers, preserving the fund-of-funds structure while capturing direct upside in select deals.
Which sectors does Include Ventures explicitly target?
The firm focuses on cleantech, edtech, healthtech, fintech, and media, with a particular weighting toward climate and energy-transition investments — a reflection of Eldridge's prior role building the cleantech practice at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (per public record). Geographically, the mandate covers North American early-stage venture with a coastal orientation.
How much capital does Include Ventures deploy?
As of mid-2026, Include Ventures has not publicly disclosed its assets under management, total commitments, or deployment figures. The firm does not appear in standard private-market databases with verified AUM data, which is not unusual for an emerging manager fund-of-funds launched in 2020 that is still building its track record and investor base.
What is the wealth origin behind Include Ventures?
There is no disclosed single-family wealth origin behind the firm. Unlike many family offices that morph into fund-of-funds managers, Include Ventures was founded as an institutional fund-of-funds from the start, with a mission to channel third-party institutional capital into diverse, emerging venture managers. Taj Ahmad Eldridge's professional background is in climate-tech entrepreneurship support and impact investing, not in stewarding a specific family fortune.
How does Include Ventures source its underlying fund managers?
The firm's sourcing thesis relies heavily on networks tied to underrepresented venture capital communities — GPs whose deal flow originates in ecosystems that traditional institutional allocators rarely access. Eldridge has emphasized in public forums that the firm evaluates managers not only on historical fund performance but also on demonstrated proximity to the founders and sectors they invest in, a sourcing filter designed to surface managers mispriced by standard institutional screens.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
Need institutional-grade insight on venture capital firms?
Altss delivers:
Prefer a guided tour?
We’ll walk you through: