CHART: Meet B-17 rising stars of venture capital in 2024, by the numbers

From left to right: Jon Chu, Caroline Fiegel, Deedy Das, and Iris Sun.

Artificial intelligence is creating new opportunities for early-career investors to shine when it comes to sourcing hot startups and writing checks for eye-popping funding rounds.

B-17 asked for nominations for our annual class of most promising investors. We selected 45 young VCs from a wide array of backgrounds, from associates to founding partners at their funds. As in previous years, B-17 also included a few picks of our own based on investors’ performance throughout 2024.

We compiled data about this year’s rising stars and broke it down into five charts that show these investors’ locations, areas of focus, and education.

Three of our rising stars this year are founders — Emerson Collective’s Julien Barber, who co-founded carbon tech startup Commons; Khosla Ventures’ Jon Chu, who built software testing company Koality; and Accel’s Ivan Zhou, who founded social gaming company Mayhem.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of investors are based in New York and San Francisco. However, several rising stars call Washington, D.C., Texas, or the Midwest home.

Most of this year’s rising stars say they’re focusing on doing deals for AI and enterprise startups, while others focus on healthcare, consumer, fintech, and other categories.

Learn more about B-17 45 rising stars of venture capital, by the numbers:

Most rising stars are based in San Francisco, with other investors calling New York, Washington, D.C., and a few other cities home.

The majority of rising star VCs went to Harvard or Stanford for their undergraduate degrees. 27 schools in total were represented among the 45 rising stars.

15 rising stars completed graduate degrees. Four rising stars have multiple graduate degrees.

Of the rising stars with graduate degrees, most have MBAs, while others have master’s degrees in computer science, AI, or a related field.