PHX Founders Fund Launches at CapCon With $10M to Close Phoenix's Pre-Seed Gap

By Kyle Macdonald, COO of Silicon Oasis

Phoenix's software founders have a new source of first capital. At PHX FWD's CapCon 2026 at Scottsdale Stadium on Nov. 5, Aaron Favreau and Clate Mask announced the PHX Founders Fund, a $10 million pre-seed fund for Phoenix-based software and AI companies with early revenue.

The fund is led by Favreau, executive director and co-founder of PHX Angels; Mask, CEO of PHX FWD; and Marc Chesley, COO of Fuse Ventures. According to PHX FWD, it was catalyzed by ten exited Phoenix founders investing their own money. How much of the $10 million has been committed so far was not disclosed.

The fund is built into PHX FWD's Fast FWD accelerator and invests in stages:

• $50,000 catalyst investment in every company accepted into Fast FWD

• $250,000 conviction check for companies that hit their growth targets

• Up to $500,000 more for companies that keep growing

Companies also receive fractional finance, accounting and legal support, along with pitch coaching to prepare for a seed or Series A round.

The fund also brings in other investors at each stage. When it backs a company, PHX Angels members meet the founder and see the deal. Arizona Venture Capital is the anchor investor. PHX Ventures and Copper Sky Capital are VC fund partners, with a first look at every investment and a chance to invest as the companies scale.

"Going from pre-seed to seed has been the missing piece here in Phoenix, and that's the piece we're here to build," Favreau said, according to PHX FWD. Chesley, who helped take Infusionsoft, Offerpad and Paradox past $100 million, put it more simply: "The hardest money is the first money."

That matters because the earliest check is where Arizona's capital gap is widest. Phoenix has produced large software outcomes, but founders raising pre-seed have usually depended on a handful of angels and a lot of calls. The fund turns that into a defined path that starts with an accelerator, adds staged checks, brings in an angel network and ends with in-state venture firms ready to follow on. Founders can get from their first check to a Series A without leaving Arizona.

The launch also continues PHX FWD's buildout. PHX Angels launched earlier this year, and CapCon brought about 300 founders and investors together, with the Arizona Commerce Authority as presenting sponsor and investors from a16z, Battery Ventures and Kickstart on stage. PHX FWD has set a goal of making Phoenix a top software city by 2035.

Silicon Oasis partnered with PHX FWD on CapCon, and PHX FWD is Silicon Oasis's Community Pillar for software. A pre-seed fund backed by founders who have already built companies here is the kind of infrastructure Arizona needs to become a Top 5 technology ecosystem. That is the larger Silicon Oasis story.