Vermilion Cliffs Ventures announced Wednesday the closing of a $25 million Fund II. The company was founded in 2023 by operator-turned-investor Ashley Smith, who runs it as one of the few solo female GPs in venture capital. Speaking to TechCrunch, Smith said this fund will continue the company’s thesis of backing technical founders, specifically those building AI infrastructure, security, and development tools.

It took about four months to raise the new fund this year, he said, and much of the capital came from existing investors. The average check size for Fund II will be between $500,000 and $1 million, and it expects to invest in at least 25 companies over the next two and a half years, having already backed six companies. The company previously raised a $13 million seed fund that backed 35 companies, including cybersecurity startup Keycard and AI infrastructure company CopilotKit.

Smith said many early-stage companies are there to help founders get to the next round, and from his experience working in marketing at Twilio, Facebook, GitHub and GitLab, he hopes to help founders with go-to-market strategies that help them make money. “Selling to developers and security teams is its own discipline, and most founders learn it the hard way over time,” he said. “I try to help them avoid mistakes that I’ve made or that I’ve seen other founders make.”