MFV Partners

Managing Partner Karthee Madasamy leads the firm's investment activities alongside Chairman Ashish Gupta and Partner Dr. Ruchi Dana. The partnership structure concentrates decision-making within this small, technically fluent team, which evaluates deep-tech opportunities across robotics, quantum computing, AI compute, and energy transition. The group does not publicly distinguish between a formal investment committee and individual partner authority, though the lean team size implies highly centralized allocation decisions.

MFV's deal origination is anchored in deep technical networks and, since May 2025, an exclusive university pipeline. Harper Court Ventures, a $25 million fund independently managed by MFV, is dedicated to startups emerging from the University of Chicago's research labs, faculty, and alumni network. That university-anchored channel supplements the firm's existing sourcing among Silicon Valley engineering founders and deep-tech accelerators.

MFV invests at the seed and early stages, writing first institutional checks into companies that are often still in the lab-to-prototype phase. Portfolio entries like PsiQuantum (2019), Agility Robotics (2020), and Chef Robotics (2023) reflect multi-year underwriting horizons before revenue scale or exit liquidity becomes visible. The firm does not market a growth-stage or late-stage vehicle.

The firm invests via direct equity positions in portfolio companies, not as a fund-of-funds. MFV launched Harper Court Ventures as a distinct $25 million fund vehicle managed by the same investment team, which operates as a separate vehicle rather than a LP commitment into another manager. There is no public indication that MFV's core fund makes LP commitments to external venture managers.

MFV's stated focus is deep tech — robotics, quantum computing, AI compute, energy transition, and space — and the portfolio lacks exposure to consumer internet, enterprise SaaS apart from industrial applications, fintech, and media. The firm's materials explicitly frame its mandate around engineering-led industrial transformation, which implicitly screens out asset-light consumer software and services models.

Harper Court Ventures is a $25 million deep-tech fund launched in May 2025 and independently managed by MFV Partners. It is institutionally tied to the University of Chicago ecosystem, targeting startups originating from university labs, faculty inventions, and alumni-founded companies. The vehicle operates under MFV's investment team and governance but is legally and financially distinct from the firm's main fund.

MFV committed to PsiQuantum in 2019 and Agility Robotics in 2020, in both cases before the quantum-computing and humanoid-robotics categories drew broad institutional VC attention. Those early positions — alongside more recent pre-revenue bets on OpenInfer (edge AI compute) and MP Space (space-based sensing) — demonstrate a pattern of underwriting heavy-R&D companies at valuations that precede category consensus.