About Pulse Fund

• Founded: 2024

• Headquarters: San Francisco, California

• Strategy: Early-stage climate technology and sustainability ventures

• Leadership: Tenzin Seldon, founding GP

Pulse Fund closed its debut climate-focused fund with backing from LPs including Beneficient, Pivotal Foundation, and the Pritzker family. The fund marks Seldon's entry as a solo first-time GP in the climate investing space. LPs cited Seldon's persistence and sector expertise as key factors in their commitment to the vehicle, according to the source.

A first-time fund from a solo GP closing with institutional and family office backing is notable in a fundraising environment where emerging managers face extended timelines and heightened scrutiny. Climate funds raised in 2023 and 2024 saw median close times stretch beyond 18 months, per PitchBook data, with LPs favoring established track records or GP teams with prior fund experience. Seldon's ability to secure commitments from a diversified LP base — including a public trust (Beneficient operates as a quasi-public entity), a foundation, and a multigenerational family office — suggests she bridged the credibility gap typically faced by debut vehicles through domain expertise or network density in climate.

The fund's LP composition raises questions about deployment strategy and follow-on capacity. Family offices and foundations typically write smaller initial checks than institutional allocators, which could constrain the fund's ability to lead later rounds or defend ownership in breakout portfolio companies. First-time climate funds in the $25m–$75m range — a plausible size for this vehicle given the LP mix — often face pressure to deploy quickly to prove the strategy, which can conflict with the longer development cycles of climate hardware or infrastructure plays. How Seldon balances pace of deployment with the sector's capital intensity will be a key variable in whether this debut fund supports a successor vehicle.

Source: Venture Capital Journal