20VC Exclusive: Mercury Founder Launches First $26M Fund with Immad Akhund

Mercury CEO Immad Akhund launches a $26M institutional fund targeting 60 seed-stage companies with non-lead checks, arguing AI is overvalued at seed and serial founders are structurally underrated.

• Akhund closed his first institutional fund at $26M last week, targeting 60 companies at ~$150K average non-lead check size.
• He passed on Scale AI when founders were 19-20, calling it his biggest miss; youth without pushback read as inexperience but wasn’t.
• AI is overhyped at seed: same idea pitched by 5th founder at $40M valuation with thin traction; he’s actively avoiding most AI deals.
• Truebill returned 30x+ from a $16M cap pre-seed entry; sold in December 2021 — timing he credits entirely to the founders.
• Mercury raised its Series B at 120x revenue in 2021; Akhund says he’d do it again as long as you raise enough and don’t spend it.
• Mercury credit card is now dominant over Brex/Ramp for Mercury’s own customers; delayed launch to 2022 was a strategic mistake.
• Seed-stage unicorn hunting is no longer enough — at $20-25M entry prices, you need decacorn outcomes to return a 10x fund.
• Mercury’s $100B bull case: US banking ($2T) and financial software ($500B) should converge; banks can’t build software, Mercury can.

2025-05-12 · Watch on YouTube