All Turtles

All Turtles is one of the more idiosyncratic structures in early-stage AI investing, and it is worth understanding what the firm is and is not before approaching it. Founded in 2017 by former Evernote CEO Phil Libin together with Jon Cifuentes and Jessica Collier, All Turtles is a startup studio rather than a conventional venture fund. The model is hands-on: rather than write checks into externally formed companies, the studio works alongside founders from problem identification through product launch, often as a co-founder and always as the first institutional partner. Operating from San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo, the firm has positioned itself around what Libin describes as the two domains undergoing the most fundamental change: the future of health and the future of work.

The stated thesis is practical AI applied to vexing everyday problems. Libin has been publicly critical of what he calls the reflex to shove AI into every product, and All Turtles’ filter is correspondingly narrow: the team wants problems where machine learning materially changes the user outcome, not where it serves as marketing surface. In health, the studio’s lens has shifted toward consumer behavior change, longevity, mental health and care navigation, with explicit interest in products that combine AI inference with real human accountability. The firm avoids deep biotech and regulated therapeutic development; its sweet spot is the intersection of consumer health, behavioral data and software products that can ship within a startup studio’s typical 12 to 24 month build cycle. Geographic distribution across San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo is treated as a feature, with the firm sourcing founders and product talent across all three markets simultaneously.

The portfolio reflects the studio model. Carrot, a fertility benefits platform that has scaled into a substantial employer-benefits business and closed a USD 75 million Series C, is the most prominent health bet and the clearest demonstration of the studio’s thesis. Spot, an AI-powered chatbot designed to help employees report workplace harassment and discrimination, sits at the health and work intersection. Tellus, a service using precision radar and AI to monitor vital signs and activity for elderly users, represents the studio’s interest in passive sensing and aging in place. mmhmm, founded by Libin during the pandemic, has become the firm’s most visible future-of-work bet, and Disco rounds out the portfolio in the company-culture and workplace category. For founders the pattern is clear: All Turtles is most useful when there is a specific consumer or employee behavior the team is trying to change, and software with AI inside is the lever.

On stage and check size, All Turtles operates at pre-seed and seed but does not function like a typical pre-seed fund. The studio frequently incubates companies in-house, taking founder-level equity in exchange for studio resources, and writes external pre-seed and seed checks into selected outside founders that fit the future-of-health or future-of-work thesis. Specific check ranges are not publicly disclosed, but the model implies meaningful equity participation rather than minority pre-seed positions. Founders should expect the engagement to look more like a co-founding relationship than an investment, with operating involvement that extends well beyond board meetings.

Decision-making sits with the founding team. Phil Libin is the most public face of the firm and the partner most associated with portfolio and product strategy, with co-founders Jon Cifuentes and Jessica Collier owning operational and product roles within the studio. The team is small and decisions move quickly, but the bar for founder fit is correspondingly high; the studio invests in fewer companies per year than a traditional seed fund and expects deep alignment on operating philosophy.

The most reliable path in is direct contact through the All Turtles website with a sharp written articulation of the problem and why AI changes the answer. Libin is publicly accessible through podcasts, conferences and writing, and founders who can demonstrate fluency in his stated views on AI hype, distributed work and consumer health tend to convert better than those who pitch generic AI applications. Warm introductions from existing studio founders or from Libin’s General Catalyst-era network are also effective.

What founders should know is that All Turtles is the wrong partner if you want a conventional check and minimal engagement, and the right partner if you want operating partners who will sit in the trenches on product, hiring and distribution. The studio’s perspective on AI is unusually skeptical for an AI-focused firm, and that skepticism is a feature: founders who can survive that filter tend to build products that hold up after the funding cycle moves on.