Giving exceptional builders confidence, capital, and credibility to create without compromise. Pre-seed + Seed up to $2M
San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2026
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The 2026 Exceptional 100 is now live! 🚀 For the third year in a row, we are spotlighting 100 standout engineering and product builders at some of the fastest-growing companies in tech. These are the people architecting high-impact internal infrastructure and shipping key features and products daily.
View the full list at: exceptional100.com
Fun facts: Exceptional has funded 3 founders from prior years, and members of past cohorts have gone on to raise over +$2B in total funding!
Beyond the list, the report covers our analysis of what the data shows regarding today's top technical talent:
→ Geography and education
→ Roles, skills, and personal attributes that stand out
→ Emerging trends shaping the talent landscape
→ How talent is moving between companies, and into founding teams
→ Talent migration for prior cohorts
Huge congratulations to everyone on this year's list! And remember, if you have a high conviction idea, reach out to us any time, we want to be your first supporters!
@TheNestVC @Marell @grahaminhoo @fresco_inferno
LFG @datavendor_ai 🚀🚀🚀
We're announcing the public beta of datavendor.ai
We spent the last two years building the best solution for people buying and selling data, whether you're a researcher in a lab or a company trying to sell data.
Data is the fundamental bottleneck for AI progress, and DataVendor will be the infra that solves it.
Go @trajectorylabs 🚀
@JensenHuang at GTC:
"Here's Trajectory and Harvey using Nemotron, post-trained it and created their own frontier-level capability."
"With customization and with partners in the ecosystem that we work with, you could turn these models into the frontier.
And a result, turn your proprietary data into sovereign intelligence"
It's great to be doing work with such amazing companies like @harvey and @nvidia over here at @trajectorylabs!
Very important piece by @ianlivingstone the Founder of @KeycardAI 📝
We've spent a lot of time at @KeycardAI thinking about how authentication and authorization need to evolve as agents take on more work.
API keys and OAuth scopes were never designed to account for tasks, delegation between agents, or agents acting on their own.
I wrote about how we're approaching this and what we think needs to change.
keycard.ai/blog/defining-aut…
@Kalshi has 2 representatives on the Exceptional 100 in 2026! @jsubhong congrats on making the list 💫
And well done @mansourtarek_ @luanalopeslara
View full report here: exceptionalcap.com/exception…
Exceptional Capital retweeted
Just met with @Marell and he is building a talent social graph to help your navigate early stage team assembly / and investment :) these are the kind of solutions we need
Exceptional Capital retweeted
This was one of the best conversations in a long time
@Marell is a no BS investor who is also thoughtful caring and a constant learner
He is the future of VC
Ciao!
It’s rare to interview a founder who helped define one software category and is now building the infrastructure for the next. I had the opportunity to sit down with @medinism this past week.
With Outreach, Manny transformed how companies scale sales.
Now, he’s helping build the economic layer for AI agents, how they’re priced, billed, measured, and monetized. As software moves from assisting humans to doing the work itself, those financial rails become increasingly important.
@paid_ai is helping define the economics of autonomous productivity.
@exceptionalvc
Exceptional Capital retweeted
Ciao!
It’s rare to interview a founder who helped define one software category and is now building the infrastructure for the next. I had the opportunity to sit down with @medinism this past week.
With Outreach, Manny transformed how companies scale sales.
Now, he’s helping build the economic layer for AI agents, how they’re priced, billed, measured, and monetized. As software moves from assisting humans to doing the work itself, those financial rails become increasingly important.
@paid_ai is helping define the economics of autonomous productivity.
@exceptionalvc
Last week in Turin, @medinism, founder of @exceptionalvc portfolio company @paid_ai and @Marell got together on stage to talk SaaSpocalypse!
Scary word? Big potential! In conversation, they broke down what's changing across the ecosystem and why, covering the future of software pricing, the merits of outcome-based pricing, and the characteristics of founders and employees who will be most effective come tailwinds or headwinds with agentic-enabled workforces.
Felt like a magical and thrilling glimpse into the future!
Thank you to Wave by Vento team for the hospitality, support, and beautiful execution of a stellar event! 💫
From @TrustVanta, Valyo Yolovski made the 2026 Exceptional 100! Congrats! 🚀
Vanta has been on the list 3/3 years - well done @christinacaci and team
#E100 now live exceptionalcap.com/exception…
Olivier Gabison from @traversal_ai made it on the 2026 Exceptional 100!
shout out to @_anish_agarwal @raazdwivedi @ahmedlone09 and team
#E100 is now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people on the 2026 Exceptional 100 representing
@thinkymachines. Included in that is @EchoShao8899
- congratulations!
@miramurati and team building a talent magnet
#E100 now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people on the 2026 Exceptional 100 representing @thinkymachines. Included in that is @alexgartrell - congratulations!
@miramurati and team building a talent magnet
#E100 now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people on the 2026 Exceptional 100 representing @thinkymachines. Included in that is @jLukeCarlson - congratulations!
@miramurati and team building a talent magnet
#E100 now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people from @Tesla_Optimus @Tesla on this year's Exceptional 100! Included in that is @splash_sahil1 - congratulations!
@elonmusk as yet undefeated creator of talent magnets across multiple orgs
#E100 report now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people from @Tesla_Optimus @Tesla on this year's Exceptional 100! Included in that is Weimin Wang - congratulations!
@elonmusk as yet undefeated creator of talent magnets across multiple orgs
#E100 report now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
3 people from @Tesla_Optimus @Tesla on this year's Exceptional 100! Included in that is Alexis Gendron - congratulations!
@elonmusk as yet undefeated creator of talent magnets across multiple orgs
#E100 report now live! exceptionalcap.com/exception…
5 people from @SpaceX @spacexai made the Exceptional 100 this year. High number and crazy talent density on account of the @xai acq! Included in the 5 is @AneeshVathul - congratulations!
@elonmusk as yet undefeated talent magnetism across numerous orgs
#E100 2026 now live: exceptionalcap.com/exception…
