We’re drawn to managers who architect entirely new ways of winning. Soso Sazesh and his partners at 43 Fund have built something we haven’t seen before: an “anti-consensus fund” where three partners split everything equally and make investment decisions independently.

Most funds agonize over investment committee decisions and consensus-building. 43 has eliminated the committee concept entirely. Soso, Dustin, and Anabel each invest their portion of the fund and can write checks without the others’ approval. The result is three distinct investment styles focused on the same goal of writing founders their first check. The result is diversification across deal flow and founder support.

What makes this timing perfect is the broader unbundling happening across early-stage infrastructure. Accelerators are no longer the golden ticket they once were. The best founders have moved on, raising their first checks through networks of angels and small funds that provide highly personalized feedback and hands-on help instead of the one-size-fits-all cohort experience.

What accelerators offered like early capital, community, and mentorship is still needed, but it’s been redistributed across operator-led syndicates, rolling funds, and micro-funds like 43. The infrastructure exists now for true first-check investing, and the alpha has moved earlier as a result.

43 positions itself as the alternative to accelerators, not the stepping stone to them. While Y Combinator batches founders into cohorts, 43 provides individualized support on the founder’s timeline. Capital and hand-on guidance from their network-of-networks before products exist, before traction develops, sometimes before teams are even formed.

Their insight is straightforward: founders don’t need cohorts and demo days. They need capital quickly from day zero and tailored support to help reach product/market fit.

43 deliberately avoids setting aside capital for follow-ons to keep the focus on what they do best: hustling to invest in promising founders before anyone else.

Every potential investment for the three partners starts with three questions: Why you? Why now? How? But the real value is in the extended evaluation process. 43 spends significant time understanding founders before investing, which translates to better support after the check clears.

As seed valuations push past $30M and traditional early-stage funds compete with multi-stage platforms, the real alpha has moved to first-check investing. 43’s structure – three independent decision-makers with deep founder relationships and no committee friction – positions them perfectly for this shift.

The accelerator era taught us what founders need early on. Funds like 43 show us how to deliver it better.

Special thank you to Walter for introducing us to Soso

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