Ballistic Ventures Fund V

Ballistic Ventures

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Status

ACTIVE

Global HQ

San Francisco, United States

Countries of investment

United States

Investment stages

Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A

Industries

Cybersecurity
Security
AI
Generative AI
Enterprise Software
B2B Software
Cloud Computing
Software

About
Ballistic Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture firm founded in late 2021 by Ted Schlein, Barmak Meftah, Roger Thornton, Jake Seid and Kevin Mandia to fund and incubate cybersecurity startups. It raised a $300M debut fund in 2022, an oversubscribed $360M second fund in 2024 and about $130M for a separate vehicle, Ballistic Ventures Fund A. In November 2026 SEC filings showed it seeking $490M across two new vehicles, $360M for a third flagship fund and $130M for Ballistic Ventures Fund B, with no capital recorded as sold at the time of filing. Its portfolio includes Talon Cyber Security, acquired by Palo Alto Networks, Pangea, acquired by CrowdStrike, Veza, Armadin, GetReal, WitnessAI, Noma and Oligo Security.

Min check size: $1M
Max check size: $10M
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Investment Thesis

Ballistic Ventures is dedicated exclusively to early-stage funding and incubation of cybersecurity and cyber-related companies, from identity, data and application security to securing AI systems and countering deepfakes and disinformation. It backs founders at pre-seed through Series A, frequently leading or co-leading, and incubates companies in-house such as GetReal and WitnessAI. Its edge is a partnership of veteran security founders and operators, including the founders of Mandiant, Fortify and AlienVault, backed by a large advisory bench of former government cyber leaders and CISOs and the BallisticX founder platform.

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Manager's Experience

Co-founder Ted Schlein spent more than two decades at Kleiner Perkins, where he was known for cybersecurity investing, before launching Ballistic. Barmak Meftah was president of AT&T Cybersecurity, and Roger Thornton co-founded Fortify Software and AlienVault; general partner Kevin Mandia founded Mandiant, now part of Google Cloud. Together the team says it has founded, funded or operated more than 90 cybersecurity companies.