Storonsky’s VC firm QuantumLight closes $500M fund II to back AI startups
Tech Funding News Sofia Chesnokova
QuantumLight, Nik Storonsky's VC firm, just closed a $500M second fund — double its first. It leans on Aleph, an AI that picks bets with almost no human hand on the wheel.
Based on reporting by Tech Funding News, Sofia Chesnokova — read the original for the full story.
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Nik Storonsky's investment firm QuantumLight has wrapped up its second fund at $500 million, and according to Sifted, it did so oversubscribed. That's double the $250 million the London-based firm raised for its first fund back in May 2025, a milestone reached just 15 months ago. CEO Ilya Kondrashov confirmed the oversubscription himself, and the timeline is the real story here: reports of a second raise surfaced only about seven months back, and the firm apparently went from early conversations to a closed $500 million fund in roughly six months.
What makes QuantumLight unusual isn't the dollar figure. It's Aleph, the in-house AI model built by Storonsky that screens growth-stage investment opportunities with very little human involvement. The firm, co-founded in 2023, spreads its bets across AI, fintech, SaaS, healthtech, and deep tech, and so far it has backed 27 companies, five of which have reached unicorn status. Names in the portfolio include Together AI, Function Health, Factory, Robin AI, Ben, and Fuse Energy — the last of which was recently valued at $5 billion.
Here's the catch. QuantumLight's oldest investments are less than three years old, and venture returns typically take years to materialize, sometimes far longer than that. So this half-billion-dollar vote of confidence isn't built on a demonstrated track record of returns. It's built on Storonsky's name and on the promise that Aleph will keep getting better at picking winners.
Kondrashov himself has acknowledged as much before, admitting the firm is still young and its history short, with the whole bet resting on the model improving over time. Whether an AI can genuinely outperform seasoned investment partners across a full cycle — the kind that includes downturns, not just a hot AI market — remains an open question. QuantumLight now has $500 million and several more years to find out.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Half a billion dollars raised in six months on the strength of an AI model with barely a three-year track record says a lot about where investor appetite sits right now — mostly in the hype column, not the returns column. Betting on Storonsky's reputation is one thing; betting that software can consistently out-pick experienced partners across a full economic cycle, downturns included, is a much bigger claim that nobody gets to test for years. Oversubscribed rounds like this tend to say more about scarce access to a hot name than about proven skill, and everyone involved knows it.
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