Before the deck. Before the demo.
Before the company.
Canonical writes $500K–$1.5M first checks into deeply technical founders building the infrastructure of a post-AGI world. We meet you at day zero — when the idea is still forming and the company doesn't exist yet.
ABOUT
Canonical is a San Francisco-based early-stage venture firm focused on the infrastructure that will power a post-AGI world. Our mission is to help visionary technical founders build transformative systems and infrastructure.
Founded and led by operators who have been on the frontier of technology since 2001, Canonical brings hands-on partnership from day zero and throughout the company-building journey. Our portfolio includes some of the most ambitious teams rethinking how money moves, how AI is trained, deployed, and governed across compute, data, agents, and cryptographic coordination, robotics and othe primitives that will become steady-state in a post-AGI world.
If you are building or investing in the picks and shovels of the post-AGI era, we would love to connect.
Our Thesis
We invest in foundational systems.
Physical AI & Robotics
Intelligence is leaving the screen. We back the foundation models, simulators, and hardware that let machines see, move, and act in the physical world — from factory floors to homes.
Silicon
Every layer of the AI stack ultimately runs on silicon. We back founders rethinking compute and memory — novel architectures, packaging, and the primitives that will carry post-AGI workloads.
Open Infrastructure
Closed labs and centralized clouds won't be the only architecture of AGI. We back open networks across the post-AGI stack: decentralized compute and training, verifiable AI, agentic protocols, and the programmable money rails that move value at machine speed.
Technical Depth
We've been founders and operators building developer platforms and zero-to-one companies for over two decades. We read the repo, debate the architecture, and earn our seat through the technical decisions — not the term sheet.
Long-term Alignment
Pre-product founders need investors who aren't optimizing for the next markup. We hold concentration, follow on with conviction, and stay through the company-building arc — not just the financing rounds.
Network Effects
Canonical founders plug into a high-signal network of operators, researchers, and builders at the frontier — the people you'd want in the group chat when something breaks at 2am or when you're hiring your first systems engineer.
Select Portfolio
We partner with early stage technical teams building infrastructure for an AI-first future.
Canonical Labs
Free, interactive tools we build for founders, GPs, and LPs.
Dilution Lab
Model SAFEs, priced rounds, option pools, and exit math. See what every term sheet actually costs you.
Try it →Fund Modeler
Size your fund, model portfolio construction, and forecast TVPI, DPI, MOIC, and IRR.
Try it →Power Law Lab
Manipulate a venture fund's outcome distribution and see what actually drives fund returns.
Try it →Physical AI & Robotics
3 years of venture investment in physical AI & robotics, mapped across 22 sub-sectors.
Try it →Semiconductor Stack
Who owns each layer of silicon today, and the 40+ startups credibly trying to take a piece of it.
Try it →Lookalike Finder
Paste a LinkedIn URL or X handle and find people with the same career DNA — trajectory and archetype, not just job title.
Try it →Capital Call Planner
For LPs and family offices: forecast capital calls and distributions, size your liquidity sleeve, and pace new commitments.
Try it →Canonical on Substack
Essays and updates from Canonical
Team
Anand Iyer
Managing Partner
Anand Iyer is a founder-turned-investor and the Managing Partner of Canonical, an early stage venture firm based in San Francisco.
He previously was the CEO & Co-founder of Trusted, scaling it through fundraising and growth before its acquisition in 2018 by a public company, Care. Care & Trusted were subsequently acquired by IAC in 2020. A Silicon Valley veteran, Anand has also been a Venture Partner at Pear and Lightspeed, investing in AI and blockchain infrastructure.
Earlier in his career, he built developer platforms at Microsoft, including Windows, Phone, and Azure. Exposed to Bitcoin in 2012, he's been investing in frontier tech for over a decade. His founder background and technical DNA gives him an edge in helping technical teams go from zero to one.
Anand has a degree in Computer Engineering from Purdue University.
Anthony Avedissian
Partner
Anthony Avedissian is a Partner at Canonical.
He previously co-founded Seed Club Ventures, a $25M early-stage venture fund focused on AI and decentralized infrastructure. Anthony has made 70+ pre-seed and seed stage investments across AI, Robotics, Energy, and Crypto.
Earlier in his career, Anthony was an investor at Amber Capital, a $2B activist hedge fund, where he focused on large cap public energy and telecoms companies. He later founded Anteo Health, taking the company from zero to one.
His hands-on experience as a founder and investor drives his passion for supporting technical founders building transformative companies.
Anthony studied at Imperial College London and University of York.