Lavrock Ventures

Lavrock focuses on early-stage, primarily seed, investments in enterprise software, cybersecurity, applied AI, and data-infrastructure companies. The firm specifically targets dual-use startups—businesses whose products can serve both commercial enterprises and U.S. government agencies. The strategy emphasizes deep, high-conviction bets rather than a high-volume portfolio approach.

General Partners Stephen Smoot and Daniel Hanks lead all investment decisions. Smoot's background includes founding a data-analytics firm for the intelligence community. Hanks is a Palantir Technologies veteran. Their combined operational experience in the national-security technology sector directly informs the firm's sourcing and diligence process.

Deal flow is heavily referral-driven and anchored in the founders' networks within the defense, intelligence, and national-laboratories community. Because both GPs have direct operational experience selling software to the government, they receive a steady stream of founder introductions from former colleagues, mission-oriented technologists, and other D.C.-area seed funds familiar with their thesis.

Yes, government-sales enablement is a defining feature of the firm's value proposition. Lavrock's GPs guide founders through FedRAMP authorization, SBIR funding transitions, and the specific security-compliance architectures required by defense and intelligence agencies. This operational support distinguishes Lavrock from generalist seed funds that lack domain expertise in federal procurement.

Lavrock generally does not invest in pure consumer technology, life sciences, or hardware-heavy manufacturing businesses. The firm stays tightly within its lane of enterprise-software and data-centric companies. Even within enterprise software, Lavrock rarely backs companies that lack a credible pathway to U.S. government sales, reinforcing the dual-use mandate.

Lavrock reserves significant capital for follow-on rounds in existing portfolio companies, particularly those reaching commercial and government procurement milestones. The concentrated portfolio model demands this reserve strategy, so the GPs can maintain or increase ownership in top performers rather than being diluted by new lead investors at the Series A and B stages.