18 DevTools investors supporting developer tooling startups

Most developer tools investors say they understand technical founders. Few actually do. The ones who get it have built products developers use, not just read about them. They know the difference between developer-first growth and enterprise sales wearing a hoodie.

These 18 investors closed developer tools deals from seed to Series C in 2025. They're backing everything from observability platforms to API infrastructure.

Quick list

Finding the right developer tools investor

Experience: Find investors who've backed products with developer-led adoption, not just enterprise sales teams calling themselves developer-first. Ask if they understand bottom-up growth and product-led models. Most don't.

Network: Check if they can intro you to CTOs at companies with real engineering budgets. Portfolio founders at other DevTools companies are worth more than generic SaaS connections. References from technical buyers matter.

Alignment: Early-stage investors often don't understand infrastructure burn rates. If they're comparing your CAC to B2B SaaS benchmarks, they won't understand why you're investing in docs and DX. Use Ellty to share your deck with trackable links. You'll see who actually opens your technical architecture slides.

Track record: Look at whether their portfolio companies got acquired by engineering orgs or sales teams. Dead API companies that pivoted to consultancies are a red flag. Check if their DevTools investments raised follow-on rounds.

Communication: Ask what support they provide during the first design partner phase. Generic "we have a great network" answers are useless. You need investors who understand why free tiers and open source aren't just marketing.

Value-add: Most promise intros to developers. Few have communities that actually drive signups. Ask portfolio companies if the investor helped with developer relations strategy or just showed up to board meetings.

Reaching out to developer tools investors

• Identify potential investors: Research who backed companies at your stage with similar go-to-market. Seed funds that specialize in bottom-up won't understand your enterprise expansion. Check Crunchbase for deals in observability, infrastructure, or APIs depending on your category.
• Craft a compelling pitch: Show GitHub stars, API calls, or active developers - not just revenue. Most investors are tired of "developers hate existing tools" without usage metrics from real technical users. Lead with adoption data.
• Share your pitch deck: Upload to Ellty and send trackable links. Monitor which pages investors spend time on. If they skip your technical architecture but read pricing slides, they probably don't get developer tools.
• Utilize your network: Message founders at portfolio companies on LinkedIn. Ask about response times during technical diligence and whether the VC understood their product velocity. Most will be honest about investor value-add.
• Attend networking events: API Days, DevRelCon, and specific language conferences are where deals happen. Skip generic startup events. Technical conferences let you meet investors who actually understand the space.
• Engage on online platforms: Connect with partners on LinkedIn after they've engaged with your content or you've met at events. Cold DMs rarely work. Comment on their portfolio announcements with something substantive.
• Organize due diligence: Set up an Ellty data room with architecture diagrams, technical docs, activation funnels, and developer NPS—all securely stored and tracked through secure file sharing. It speeds up technical diligence significantly.
• Set up introductory meetings: Lead with your most impressive technical metric - weekly active developers, API throughput, or community size. Don't waste 15 minutes on market size slides about "the $X billion developer tools market."

Why developer tools matter in 2025

AI tooling created a new category of developer infrastructure needs in 2024-2025. Companies need observability for LLM apps, vector databases, and prompt management tools. Traditional DevTools investors are looking at AI-native infrastructure.

The shift to platform engineering means more budget for internal developer platforms and workflow automation. Developer experience isn't a nice-to-have anymore - it's how companies ship faster. Investors know this impacts productivity across their entire startup fundraising portfolio

18 best developer tools investors

1. Accel

They've been in DevTools since Atlassian and actually understand product-led growth for technical users.

• Recent Deals: Sentry $90M Series D (Feb 2025), Airbyte $150M Series C (Mar 2025), Snyk $196M Series G (Jan 2025)
• LinkedIn: Accel Partners
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, observability, security, APIs
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D
• Location: Palo Alto, USA
• Website: accel.com

2. Craft Ventures

David Sacks gets technical products and bottoms-up distribution better than most enterprise VCs.

• Recent Deals: PostHog $50M Series C (Mar 2025), Sourcegraph $150M Series D (Apr 2025), ClickHouse $50M Series B (Feb 2025)
• LinkedIn: Craft Ventures
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, analytics, databases
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: San Francisco, USA
• Website: craftventures.com

3. Essence VC

They focus exclusively on early-stage enterprise SaaS and DevTools with strong product backgrounds.

• Recent Deals: Linear $35M Series B (Jan 2025), Supabase $80M Series B (Apr 2025), Resend $3M seed (Feb 2025)
• LinkedIn: Essence VC
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, productivity tools, infrastructure, APIs
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: essencevc.fund

4. Index Ventures

They backed some of the best developer-first companies and have portfolio founders who actually help.

• Recent Deals: Vercel $250M Series E (Apr 2025), Weaviate $50M Series B (Mar 2025), Cohere $270M Series C (Feb 2025)
• LinkedIn: Index Ventures
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, cloud infrastructure, AI tools, databases
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D, Series E
• Location: San Francisco, USA / London, UK
• Website: indexventures.com

5. Kleiner Perkins

They've been doing infrastructure investing since before it was called cloud and know how to scale technical products.

• Recent Deals: Neon $104M Series B (May 2025), Databricks $500M Series I (Jan 2025), Glean $200M Series D (Mar 2025)
• LinkedIn: Kleiner Perkins
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, databases, AI infrastructure, cloud platforms
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: kleinerperkins.com

6. Lightspeed Venture Partners

They have a track record in developer tools from Nutanix to HashiCorp and understand infrastructure economics.

• Recent Deals: Airplane $32M Series B (Feb 2025), Hasura $100M Series C (Mar 2025), Coder $35M Series B (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Lightspeed Venture Partners
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, workflow automation, databases
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: lsvp.com

7. Matrix Partners

They understand open source business models and don't panic about free tiers like some investors.

• Recent Deals: RunwayML $141M Series C (Jun 2025), Hugging Face $235M Series D (Jan 2025), Modal $16M Series A (Mar 2025)
• LinkedIn: Matrix Partners
• Sector Focus: AI tools, developer platforms, infrastructure, ML tools
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: San Francisco, USA / Boston, USA
• Website: matrixpartners.com

8. Redpoint Ventures

They backed Stripe and Twilio early and know how to evaluate API businesses.

• Recent Deals: Temporal $103M Series B (Mar 2025), Stytch $90M Series B (Feb 2025), Knock $12M Series A (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Redpoint Ventures
• Sector Focus: APIs, developer platforms, infrastructure, workflow tools
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: Menlo Park, USA / San Francisco, USA
• Website: redpoint.com

9. Sequoia Capital

They have the deepest pockets and best follow-on support, but they're picky about early-stage DevTools.

• Recent Deals: OpenAI developer platform expansion (Jan 2025), Pinecone $100M Series B (Mar 2025), Replit $97M Series B (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Sequoia Capital
• Sector Focus: AI infrastructure, developer platforms, databases, cloud tools
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C, Growth
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: sequoiacap.com

10. Greylock Partners

They invested in developer tools before it was trendy and have technical partners who actually code.

• Recent Deals: LaunchDarkly $200M Series D (Apr 2025), Codeium $65M Series B (Feb 2025), Replit $80M Series B extension (May 2025)
• LinkedIn: Greylock Partners
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, AI coding tools, feature management, infrastructure
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: greylock.com

11. Bessemer Venture Partners

They have a cloud practice that understands SaaS metrics for technical products.

• Recent Deals: Retool $45M Series C (Feb 2025), Cypress $40M Series C (Jan 2025), Auth0 portfolio support (ongoing)
• LinkedIn: Bessemer Venture Partners
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, low-code platforms, authentication, testing tools
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: Menlo Park, USA / New York, USA
• Website: bvp.com

12. GGV Capital

They understand developer tools in both US and Asia markets, which helps for global expansion.

• Recent Deals: LangChain $25M Series A (Mar 2025), Dify $18M Series A (Apr 2025), Weights & Biases $50M Series C (Feb 2025)
• LinkedIn: GGV Capital
• Sector Focus: AI tools, ML infrastructure, developer platforms
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C
• Location: Menlo Park, USA / Shanghai, China
• Website: ggvc.com

13. Threshold Ventures

Formerly DFJ, they back technical founders early and understand deep tech infrastructure.

• Recent Deals: EdgeDB $15M Series A (May 2025), Xata $9M Series A (Mar 2025), Nile $11.6M Series A (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Threshold Ventures
• Sector Focus: Databases, developer tools, infrastructure, data platforms
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: threshold.com

14. Benchmark

They take one board seat per partner and go deep, which means real support for technical founders.

• Recent Deals: Convex $26M Series A (Apr 2025), Confluent portfolio support (ongoing), Elastic portfolio support (ongoing)
• LinkedIn: Benchmark
• Sector Focus: Developer platforms, databases, infrastructure, data streaming
• Stage Focus: Series A, Series B
• Location: San Francisco, USA
• Website: benchmark.com

15. Unusual Ventures

They have a data science team that helps portfolio companies with product analytics and growth metrics.

• Recent Deals: Airplane seed round (Jan 2025), Zed $6M seed (Feb 2025), Infisical $2.8M seed (Mar 2025)
• LinkedIn: Unusual Ventures
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, security tools, workflow automation
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A
• Location: Menlo Park, USA
• Website: unusual.vc

16. Abstract Ventures

They invest exclusively in developer-first companies and have a community of technical founders.

• Recent Deals: Turso $8M seed (Feb 2025), Depot $6M seed (Jan 2025), Trigger.dev $3M seed (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Abstract Ventures
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, databases, workflow tools
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A
• Location: San Francisco, USA
• Website: abstractvc.com

17. Engineering Capital

Former CTOs and engineering leaders who invest in technical infrastructure and understand what developers need.

• Recent Deals: Inngest $6.1M seed (Mar 2025), Warrant $5.3M seed (Feb 2025), Defer $3.2M seed (Apr 2025)
• LinkedIn: Engineering Capital
• Sector Focus: Developer tools, infrastructure, workflow automation, observability
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A
• Location: San Francisco, USA
• Website: engineering.capital

18. Dev Guild

They only invest in developer tools and have technical diligence from engineers who've built similar products.

• Recent Deals: Porter $21M Series A (Apr 2025), Hatchet $4M seed (Mar 2025), WorkOS $80M Series B (Feb 2025)
• LinkedIn: Dev Guild
• Sector Focus: Developer platforms, infrastructure, authentication, deployment tools
• Stage Focus: Seed, Series A, Series B
• Location: New York, USA
• Website: devguild.com

Track which investors engage with your deck

These 18 investors closed developer tools deals from early 2023 through November 2025. Before you start reaching out, set up proper tracking.

Upload your deck to Ellty and create a unique link for each investor. You'll see exactly which slides they view and how long they spend on your architecture diagrams. Most founders are surprised to learn investors skip the market size slides but spend 5+ minutes on your API design and technical moat.

When investors ask for more materials during technical diligence, share an Ellty data room instead of messy email threads. Your system architecture, performance benchmarks, and security docs in one secure place with view analytics.

Common questions

How do I know if an investor actually understands developer tools?

Check if their portfolio has products with GitHub stars, open source projects, or clear developer-led adoption. Ask their portfolio founders if the VC understood technical metrics during diligence. Most enterprise investors pretend to get DevTools but panic when you explain why free tiers matter.

Should I focus on seed or Series A investors first?

Depends on your revenue and adoption. If you have under $500k ARR but strong GitHub activity or API usage, talk to seed funds. Series A investors want $1M+ ARR unless you have exceptional developer metrics like 10k+ weekly active developers.

What metrics do developer tools investors care about most?

Active developers, API calls, GitHub stars, developer NPS, activation rate, and time-to-first-value. Revenue matters less early on than proof developers actually use your product. Show retention cohorts for technical users.

How many investors should I reach out to?

Target 15-20 that match your stage and category. More isn't better. Research their recent deals and only reach out if they've backed similar go-to-market models. Seed investors who only do enterprise sales won't understand your bottoms-up approach.

Do I need warm intros or can I cold email?

Warm intros have 10x better response rates. Message founders at portfolio companies on LinkedIn and ask for intros after you've shown them your product. Cold emails work occasionally if you have exceptional metrics in your subject line.

When should I set up a data room?

Before first meetings with serious investors. They'll ask for architecture docs, security practices, and performance data during technical diligence. Having it ready in an Ellty data room speeds up the process by weeks.