Fortitude Ventures

Managing Partner Sungjoon Cho leads the firm, and Principal Joan Kim serves as the other named investing principal per the firm's website. The advisory network includes domain experts from Bear Flag Robotics, Shopify, Lunit, Moloco, and Foundry, but investment authority appears to rest with Cho and Kim.

Fortitude appears to source through operator networks in hard-tech and autonomy, given its advisor roster includes executives from Bear Flag Robotics, a John Deere acquisition. The firm's narrow dual mandate — AI for knowledge work and robotics for the physical world — acts as a filter, pulling inbound deal flow toward founders building in defense, healthcare logistics, and industrial simulation. Publicly, Fortitude does not describe a formal scout network or in-house venture partner program.

The firm draws a line between two domains: 'AI autonomy of knowledge work' and 'robotic autonomy of the physical world.' In practice, this includes both pure software — Coval builds conversational AI agents, Cashmere enables AI-content monetization — and hard-tech plays like Current Surgical's autonomous cancer ablation or Poseidon's unmanned seaplanes. It is not a pure deep-tech fund, but it explicitly avoids SaaS tools that do not involve autonomy or transformation of legacy industries.

Fortitude describes itself as an early-stage venture firm without publishing a target check size. The portfolio composition — companies that are pre-revenue or building regulatory-heavy prototypes — suggests seed and Series A engagement, though no dollar figures are publicly disclosed.

No public disclosure exists about Fortitude's reserve ratio or follow-on strategy. Given the capital intensity of hard-tech startups — Current Surgical's regulatory path, ReSim's simulation infrastructure — the firm likely reserves for follow-on, but this is an inference, not a confirmed policy.