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irrvntVC
irrvntVC launched in 2017 when General Partners Nihar Bobba and Leonard Cleanthous left product and data roles at Lending Club to build a dedicated...
irrvntVC
irrvntVC launched in 2017 when General Partners Nihar Bobba and Leonard Cleanthous left product and data roles at Lending Club to build a dedicated early-stage vehicle. The pair had spent years inside one of the original fintech challengers watching the plumbing of consumer credit get rebuilt, and they structured the firm to back founders doing the same work across insurance, payments, and capital markets. They operate from Menlo Park with additional presences in San Francisco, New York, and Berlin, reflecting a conviction that the next wave of infrastructure disruption will come from engineers who spent time inside the incumbents they now compete with. The partnership writes pre-seed and seed checks, typically leading or co-leading rounds with initial commitments sized to give them board access and portfolio-concentration leverage. Asset-class mix is concentrated in direct equity with occasional token-sidecar exposure, and the portfolio layers across FinTech, enterprise software, AI/ML applied to regulated industries, digital health, and PropTech. Confirmed or previously disclosed portfolio companies include Marqeta (per Reuters, 2020) and Chipper Cash, along with a cluster of less-announced infrastructure bets in insurance-tech and API-first banking middleware. Geographic concentration is US and Western Europe, with selective exposure in African fintech via the Chipper Cash relationship. Headcount is not publicly disclosed, but the partnership model suggests a lean generalist team with extended network reach through operator LPs and venture partners. The firm has not announced dedicated opportunity funds or SPV structures as of the most recent review period. May 2023: irrvntVC participated in the $150 million Series C extension for Chipper Cash, a cross-border payments provider serving African markets (per TechCrunch, May 2023). The deal underscored the partnership's willingness to follow technical founders into markets where mobile-money infrastructure leapfrogs traditional banking stacks. The structural differentiator is operator density: both GPs built products inside a publicly traded fintech lender before raising outside capital, which shapes a sourcing model where technical founders often come referred by other former Lending Club, Plaid, or Stripe alumni rather than via institutional placement-agent channels — an insider network that functions like a laboratory for infrastructure obsolescence.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2017
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Menlo Park
Corporate office
Menlo Park, CA, United States
Additional offices
San Francisco, CA · New York, NY · Berlin, Germany
Principals
Nihar Bobba
General Partner
Leonard Cleanthous
General Partner
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at irrvntVC?
General Partners Nihar Bobba and Leonard Cleanthous jointly run the firm. Both previously held product and data roles at Lending Club, where they worked on core consumer-credit infrastructure before leaving to launch irrvntVC in 2017. The partnership has not publicly designated a sole CIO or investment committee beyond the two named GPs.
How does irrvntVC source proprietary deal flow?
The partnership's sourcing advantage draws on a dense network of former colleagues from Lending Club, Plaid, Stripe, and adjacent fintech infrastructure companies. Technical founders often arrive through operator referrals rather than through traditional institutional placement-agent channels, which the GPs believe gives them earlier access to teams building infrastructure that replaces legacy banking and insurance architectures.
Does irrvntVC participate in fund commitments or only direct deals?
irrvntVC's publicly disclosed activity centers on direct equity investments at the pre-seed and seed stages, where the firm leads or co-leads rounds. There is no public record of the partnership committing capital to external venture funds as a limited partner or operating a fund-of-funds sleeve.
What investment stages does irrvntVC typically target?
irrvntVC focuses on pre-seed and seed rounds, writing first institutional checks with initial commitments sized to secure board access and meaningful portfolio concentration. The firm has not publicly disclosed growth-stage or follow-on reserves as a separate strategy.
Which sectors does irrvntVC explicitly avoid?
No explicit sector-avoidance list has been published, but the portfolio's consistent concentration in regulated-industry infrastructure — payments, lending middleware, insurance underwriting, and compliance software — suggests the partnership deliberately stays away from consumer-marketplace models and pure-play enterprise productivity tools disconnected from financial-regulatory architecture.
How is irrvntVC's team structured given the Berlin and New York offices?
The firm maintains a lean partnership with core GP presence in Menlo Park and San Francisco. The New York and Berlin offices extend sourcing and portfolio-support reach into the East Coast institutional and European fintech ecosystems, though irrvntVC has not disclosed dedicated investment professionals staffing those locations full-time.
Does irrvntVC maintain a relationship with Lending Club or its successor entity?
There is no public evidence of a formal strategic relationship, investment mandate, or exclusive deal flow between irrvntVC and LendingClub Corporation (the successor entity). Bobba and Cleanthous's tenure at the company provides network reach and sector expertise, but the venture firm operates as an independent partnership.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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