Bison Ventures
Status
ACTIVE
Global HQ
San Francisco, United States
Countries of investment
- United States
Investment stages
- Pre-Seed
- Seed
- Series A
- Series B
Industries
- AI
- Deep Tech
- Robotics
- Biotechnology
- Health Tech
- Energy
- Climate Tech
- Agtech
- Aerospace
- Industrial Tech
About
Bison Ventures is an early-stage frontier technology venture firm founded in 2021 by Tom Biegala and Ben Hemani, who previously invested for Cascade Asset Management, the investment office of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation Trust. Launched in Seattle with a $135M debut fund, the firm now lists its address in San Francisco. In October 2026 it closed Fund II at $160M, about 19% larger than Fund I, to back Real World Intelligence companies in physical AI, human health, and energy and compute from pre-seed to Series B. The firm plans 15 to 18 companies from the new fund and has already made investments including Grid Aero, Great Sky and Inner Logic.
Bison Ventures is an early-stage frontier technology venture firm founded in 2021 by Tom Biegala and Ben Hemani, who previously invested for Cascade Asset Management, the investment office of Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation Trust. Launched in Seattle with a $135M debut fund, the firm now lists its address in San Francisco. In October 2026 it closed Fund II at $160M, about 19% larger than Fund I, to back Real World Intelligence companies in physical AI, human health, and energy and compute from pre-seed to Series B. The firm plans 15 to 18 companies from the new fund and has already made investments including Grid Aero, Great Sky and Inner Logic.
Investment Thesis
Bison Ventures invests in early-stage frontier technology companies applying AI to the physical world under its Real World Intelligence thesis, across physical AI, human health, and energy and compute. It backs technical founders from pre-seed to Series B building non-incremental, order-of-magnitude innovations, writing cheques of $1M to $15M. Its edge comes from founders who invested for the Gates family office Cascade Asset Management and an investment team with engineering backgrounds.
Manager's Experience
Founding partners Tom Biegala and Ben Hemani worked together as venture investors at Cascade Asset Management, the investment office for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and Gates family assets, before founding Bison in 2021. Hemani has an environmental engineering background with prior climate tech investing, and the whole investment team has engineering backgrounds. Biegala sits on the board of portfolio company Allonnia, and partner Caleb Appleton led Bison's seed investment in Inner Logic.
Team
Tom Biegala - Founding Partner
Ben Hemani - Founding Partner
Caleb Appleton - Partner
Ariel Wright - Principal
Ellie McDonald - Principal
Marc Gulley - CFO
Portfolio
Thinking Machines Lab
Zyphra
Grid Aero
Great Sky
Inner Logic
Vivodyne
Cobot
Juvena
Allonnia
Bonsai