Mercedes Bent

Mercedes Bent is a venture capitalist and co-founder of Premise Ventures, a firm she launched with partner Vanessa Larco in 2025 to invest in AI-native tools at the pre-seed and seed stages. She previously served as a Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners from 2019 to 2025, where she focused on early-stage consumer, fintech, and Latin America investments. She is best known for her investments in companies including Magic Eden, Stori, Honeylove, Outschool, and XMTP, and for building technical founder communities such as Surreal.