The son of a mechanic, Santi Subotovsky has thought a lot about cars.  "The most surprising thing is how much you can do yourself," said Subotovsky. "Here in the U.S., we take that for granted. We buy a car and, when it gets old, we return it and get a new one. Actually, you can build a car. The car you build is going to be different from any other car out there. But it’s still a great car that gets a lot of attention." In his garage with his kids, Subotovsky—who’s been a general partner at Emergence Capital since 2016—is rebuilding a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle. Each startup is distinct, the same way no two classic cars are exactly alike.  "Every company is different," said Subotovsky. "‘You should hire this person, or do that.’ But no, you’re making iterative decisions based on how you want the car to come together. So, you need to make sure you put in all the right parts for that car, and that you understand the terrain you’re dealing with."  Cars are a craft, the kind that requires hands, sweat, expertise, and hours. Investors across Emergence (or EmCap, as it’s sometimes called) seem to all have artisanal tasks of their own—firm cofounder Gordon Ritter is a rower, general partner Jake Saper is a musician, and partner Yaz El-Baba is a competitive mixed martial artist. Joe Floyd, general partner at Emergence since 2018, has written and illustrated comic books, including one called Silicon Heroes, imagined for his nieces and nephews.  "Reading a graphic novel or comic book, you have to use your imagination, to fill in all the blanks," Floyd told Fortune. "You're getting little snapshots, and then you create that movie in your head of what happens between panels." Most tactile crafts involve filling in the blanks, or seeing what’s possible even if it isn’t obvious. They also can’t scale terribly well—certainly, you could argue that scaling comic book illustration or classic car restoration is possible, but it’s outside the nature of the thing. And there is, I suppose, a through-line here to venture capital—at a moment in the industry where some firms are growing into asset managers and others are focusing on basics, Emergence considers itself solidly in the latter camp (albeit with a lot of cash).  Emergence has closed its oversubscribed seventh fund at $1 billion, Fortune can exclusively report. Since its founding in 2003, the firm has backed Salesforce, Zoom, Gusto, Veeva Systems, Bill.com, and Doximity. "We've always said that if we graduate from emerging to established, then we need to start a new firm," said Subotovsky. "Hopefully, this will continue the eternal process of emergence." This marks a notable jump from the firm’s sixth fund, announced in 2021 at $575 million. The jump is, in part, to pursue AI and the future of work.  "It’s a generational opportunity for AI investing, period," said Floyd. "This is such a big technology shift, and we wanted to be in a position where we could fund these entrepreneurs. Right now, AI companies are growing faster than we've ever seen before and going into markets that they hadn't been able to go into before. It’s a moment in time where we can really lean into our experience helping companies move from on-prem to cloud. It's now the same thing. How can we help them move from SaaS to AI?" One AI founder currently working with Emergence: Eric Simons, CEO and founder of StackBlitz. StackBlitz—which released AI app development tool Bolt.new in 2024—is among the high-flying AI startups soaring to millions in ARR, or annual recurring revenue, over months. Simons said via email that his company is at a "major growth moment" and that Emergence is playing a "critical role" as the company scales. "They’re actually chopping wood and carrying water, which is rare," Simons added.  Together AI, Arcee AI, and Bland are also among the firm’s biggest AI plays to date. And the firm, which primarily invests at seed and Series A, is likely to be hunkered in for a long time, even by venture standards. Even though Zoom went public in 2019, Subotovsky is the only pre-IPO VC remaining on the company’s board. Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan, who calls Emergence a "founder’s big brother," still sees the firm as key to Zoom’s future. (The firm still holds a stake in Zoom worth about $400 million.) "They’re more like a basketball team than an NFL team," said Yuan (yes) over Zoom. "They’re a smart, small team, and the beauty of a small team is that you know they all want to support you." Since 2007, Stanford University has backed Emergence. Rob Wallace, CEO of Stanford Management Company, which manages the university’s endowment, describes the firm as "careful investors" and "deep domain specialists in SaaS and software." "If we took the cumulative gains that Emergence has made for Stanford since 2007, it would endow in perpetuity more than 800 full undergraduate scholarships every year," said Wallace, adding: "The endowment is sweating on behalf of the students and scholars of Stanford every single day."  Floyd and Subotovsky have been at Emergence for a combined 28 years, starting long before either became a GP. Their shared affinity for craft-like tasks translates to venture, especially salient in today’s landscape. For Subotovsky, it’s a reminder that a company, like a classic car, is more than a machine—it’s a story that's always moving, and a process demanding tenacity. "I do feel it's a reflection of how we do venture," said Subotovsky. "Venture at some point got very commercialized. It became more transactional, and that worked for a while, but now we're going back to the basics. Building a company isn't just pushing a button and hiring automatically. It's hard. And though there are playbooks—and you can benefit from those playbooks—there's still a lot of inquiry that’s required. Because every company is a unique thing. That's why I feel that people who are going to be successful in helping founders build these companies from emerging to iconic, will need to love it—and it will take a while." See you tomorrow, Allie GarfinkleX: @agarfinksEmail: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.comSubmit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here. Nina Ajemian curated the deals section of today’s newsletter. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com ...read more read less