Artemis is Solving Big Problems in 2025
The Artemis Fund believes technology can create prosperity for all. With offices in New York, Texas, and Nevada, Artemis leads seed rounds for companies creating resilient families, individuals, and businesses across the US.
2024 was a wild ride on both sides of the dealmaking table. We saw the first annual rise in venture funding since 2021, with global funding climbing 4% to $274B. This glimmer of growth, driven by AI mega-rounds in Q4, hid a deeper drought in deal volume. Investors remained largely cautious amid high interest rates, geopolitical tensions, and economic uncertainty.
Beyond AI, other sectors struggled to find momentum. Fintech funding dropped 20%, digital health remained flat, and retail tech made only slight gains. Investors leaned into early-stage deals, staking out claims in a highly selective environment where median funding totals remained resilient despite shrinking deal volume.
With a strong start to our Fund II investments in 2024, we’re planning to double down in 2025 on our efforts to invest in visionary founders building technology creating resilient families, individuals, and businesses. Whether it’s a fresh approach to fraud prevention, fertility tech to meet women where they are, or exploring the future of AI-driven personalization, we believe the next once in a generation company will be built by unexpected founders.
Here is a look at what we’re hunting for in the year ahead.
Faster, Safer, Smaller Fintech
- Why are we all still using Excel? For decades, Excel has been the backbone of financial operations, with 70% of all companies relying on it to run their businesses, despite being a breeding ground for inefficiency and human error. With AI stepping into traditional services businesses, we believe there’s a massive opportunity to save time, cut costs, and eliminate errors in reporting, audits, and diligence. Artemis is seeking startups reimagining the financial management tech stack through smarter, faster solutions.
- Tackling fraud prevention: Financial fraud has become a growing epidemic. Over 30% of Americans are targeted annually — with the hardest hit demographic aged 65+. Nearly everyone we know has experienced or witnessed a financial scare in the past year. The cost of inaction is mounting, and we believe the tipping point of what both consumers and businesses will tolerate has arrived. We’re interested in meeting startups creating technology that takes a fresh approach to fraud prevention and compliance tech.
- Small is the new big: Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are the backbone of the economy, driving 43.5% of GDP and employing 45.9% of the population. We see tremendous opportunity in startups empowering SMBs with AI-powered platforms that help them grow, manage their finances, and stay competitive in an increasingly complex digital economy. With the right support, we believe growth is not only possible, but inevitable for SMBs.
- Other trends on our radar: We’re looking for a personal wealth management platform that goes beyond public markets — one that seamlessly integrates private investments, real estate, and other asset classes while optimizing and automating portfolio management. Additionally, we see a major opportunity for Zelle-like technology to streamline cross-border B2B payments, making transactions faster, simpler, and more efficient.
The Landscape of Commerce is Evolving
- High costs, declining quality, and what it means for commerce: The cost of goods is rising as fast as quality is declining. We anticipate a shift to nearshoring, smaller brands struggling to survive, and a greater adoption of Retail-as-a-Service models with a focus on sustainability. We’re eager to meet startups enabling cost-efficient, high-quality production, and those who are working to improve supply chain resilience.
- The relationship between revenue and the future of personalization: AI-driven personalization is empowering brands to take greater ownership of the customer relationship. Companies using AI see a 20% increase in customer engagement and a 15% boost in sales, with personalized product recommendations driving up to 31% of online brands’ revenue. We’re looking for startups advancing customer acquisition by enhancing search and discovery or integrating human-in-the-loop personalization to deliver smarter, more tailored experiences.
- Expanding across borders with smarter logistics: As cross-border payment innovations streamline transactions in fintech, we anticipate similar opportunities to emerge in cross-border commerce through advancements in logistics. We’re seeking companies driving innovation in 3PL (third-party logistics), last-mile delivery, and scalable shipping solutions — making it simpler and more efficient for brands to connect with consumers across the globe.
- Other trends on our radar: We’re tracking the rise of micro-influencers with hyper-local or niche followings providing new opportunities for brands to engage authentically with their audiences. Additionally, we’re interested in social selling as a tool to build direct customer relationships.
Building the Future of Care
- Fertility tech for evolving demographics: As more women delay parenthood or opt for solo parenting journeys, fertility tech is becoming increasingly vital. In 2022, for the seventh consecutive year, American women in their early 30s had higher birth rates than those in their late 20s. Births among women 40 and older also rose significantly, up 6% for ages 40–44 and 12% for those over 45. Artemis is interested in startups that address not only clinical needs, but the emotional and financial challenges of modern pregnancy.
- Creating opportunities for an evolving workforce: Burnout and workforce shortages are driving healthcare workers to explore new opportunities beyond traditional roles. From frontline to back-office solutions, there is significant potential in tools that enable these workers to scale their expertise and impact through a one-to-many model. We’re interested in startups integrating these capabilities into existing clinical workflows and payment models, to enhance the patient-provider relationship.
- Putting more value in value based care: We know… VBC has had slow commercial adoption. Hear us out. By 2027, 90 million lives are expected to be covered under value-based care models. As states face resource constraints, VBC offers a way to improve efficiency and patient outcomes while sharing risks and rewards among payers and providers. This shift creates opportunities for startups building technology solutions across care coordination platforms, VBC implementation tools, and analytics for population health management. We see particular opportunities in VBC for improving maternal health outcomes, advancing behavioral health integration, and managing chronic diseases.
- Other trends on our radar: As the boomer generation ages into Medicare, the ratio of workers to Medicare beneficiaries is reaching a critical breaking point. Existing caregivers are overburdened, under compensated, and struggling to meet growing demand. We’re tracking the challenges — and opportunities — in healthcare and services for aging populations in particular.
While 2024 offered glimpses of resilience and innovation amidst uncertainty, we’re ready to turn those sparks into lasting progress in 2025. We’re on the hunt for bold startups tackling big economic challenges head-on. If you know a great team building in these categories — or exploring ideas we should have on our radar — send them our way. Let’s shake things up and make 2025 a year of transformative progress.
We believe once in a generation companies will be built by unexpected founders. If that sounds like you, pitch us here!
