The Lone Wolf VC: Will AI-Powered Solo VCs reshaping Venture Capital?

In a viral LinkedIn post this week, Itamar Novick, Founder & General Partner at Recursive Ventures, outlined how solo venture capitalists—backed by advanced AI tools—are redefining the dynamics of early-stage investing.

"We're not replacing venture capital," Novick wrote. "We're replacing how venture capital works."

His post highlights a growing trend: solo VCs—often former founders, domain experts, or technical operators—are leveraging AI to automate key elements of the investing process. The result is a nimble model where individual investors can match or exceed the operational capacity of traditional VC firms.

Key points Novick raised:

• AI-driven leverage: Tools like Claude, Perplexity Pro, and OpenAI are helping solo investors automate deal flow, run due diligence, and perform deep market research—functions that once required a team of associates.

• Speed over consensus: Solo VCs can make investment decisions in days, while larger funds may be slowed by internal alignment and bureaucracy.

• Personal touch: Founders increasingly value human relationships and personal brand over institutional processes, giving solo VCs an edge in building trust.

Novick described this shift as the "Spotify-ification of VC," marked by lower barriers to entry, smarter tools, end-to-end automation, and founder-first dynamics.

TheMarketAI.com Take:It’s very tempting to “go solo” with AI. But taking a collaborative approach—especially when investing in startups—is probably still invaluable. People are very good at convincing themselves, but convincing others is trickier. If an investment is truly good, you should be able to make a compelling case for it. AI is not yet designed to rigorously challenge or forcefully opine on investment decisions. We think we will see some lone wolf investors successfully create micro VCs, but we remain skeptical that they will consistently achieve superior investment outcomes compared to more collaborative models.

Source: LinkedIn post by Itamar Novick