Engine Ventures

About the fund

Launched as an experimental spin-out from MIT in 2016, The Engine built by MIT rebranded its investment fund as The Engine Ventures in 2023 after reaching a level of success and scale that required expanding its original structure into two entities with a shared mission — Engine Ventures as the independent VC firm, and The Engine as a separate nonprofit incubator and accelerator. Fund III closed at $398M in June 2024, bringing the firm's total AUM to over $1 billion; the fund had backed 56 transformational companies across its prior vintages. The firm pioneered "Tough Tech" as a distinct asset class — deep science and engineering companies with long development timelines that translate breakthrough academic research into commercial products addressing climate, human health, and advanced systems and infrastructure. Fund III continues this mandate at increased scale, with check sizes typically in the $1–10M range at seed and early stages, always with board appointments and hands-on operational support.