3Lines

Check that you fit the thesis

3Lines invests in companies with artificial intelligence and disruptive software technology at their core, grouped around the future of work, enterprise and industry. If your company sits outside software and AI, it is likely a poor fit.

Confirm your stage before you pitch

The firm's pages describe its stage differently in different places — early stage on the homepage, a revenue requirement on the funding page. Read both and judge honestly whether you match the revenue expectation the funding page sets, rather than assuming the early-stage framing applies to you.

Line up a referral

The application form asks who referred you. Treat a warm introduction as part of the process, not an optional extra, and work your network for a path in before you submit.

How to apply

Apply through the online application form and send your pitch deck to the firm's deal inbox. 3Lines invests in both US and India-based founders, so applicants from India can apply through the same route.

3Lines Venture Capital is a venture capital firm based out of Denver, Colorado. It has been investing since 2016, and describes itself as an AI-age VC firm that backs founders building capital-efficient, disruptive technology companies that can grow with both capital and coaching.

What it invests in

3Lines invests in startups with artificial intelligence and disruptive software technology at their core. It frames its focus around three themes: the future of work, the future of enterprise, and the future of industry. Its funding page describes a focus on disruptive software companies that are already generating annual net revenue, which places its interest in startups further along than the idea stage.

Early stage or revenue stage

3Lines is not consistent about the stage it backs. Its homepage repeatedly presents the firm as an early-stage investor and counts an early-stage portfolio. Its funding application page, by contrast, sets out a revenue requirement that reads as a growth-stage filter rather than an early-stage one. A founder weighing a pitch should take both descriptions at face value and check which fits before reaching out.

Portfolio

3Lines reports its portfolio in two ways that do not line up. A line on its site describes a portfolio of twenty-one early-stage companies in the US and India, while a set of counters on the same site reports thirty-one companies invested in, twenty-two of them active, and nine exits. These are the firm's own figures, and its pages do not agree with one another, so read them as a rough sense of scale rather than a settled count.

How to pitch

3Lines takes pitches through an online application form, and asks founders to send a pitch deck to its deal inbox. The form asks who referred the applicant, so a warm introduction is part of how it expects to hear from founders. The firm invests in companies in both the US and India.