Starship Ventures

Sean Hoge, as Founder and General Partner, leads investment decisions, supported by Hugo Peterson, who serves as General Partner and COO. The firm's website lists both as the core investing partners, with Peterson focused on firm operations and strategic partnerships alongside deal work. No separate investment committee structure has been disclosed publicly.

Starship explicitly targets early-stage, seed, and start-up deep tech companies. The firm's public materials describe backing 'contrarian deep tech founders' at the very earliest phases of company formation, with a focus on technologies that require patient, multi-decade capital commitments.

Starship does not publicly specify its lead versus follow posture. Its portfolio and stated strategy suggest an active, thesis-driven early-stage investor, but specific round leadership details for named portfolio companies like Reflect Orbital or Pipedream Labs have not been disclosed.

The firm concentrates on deep tech—the convergence of atoms, bits, and biology—specifically listing aerospace, advanced materials, geoengineering, AI infrastructure, logistics, energy, robotics, and climate adaptation. Confirmed portfolio companies span satellite sunlight delivery, underground autonomous logistics, weather modification, electric construction machinery, and kinetic space launch.

Starship operates a geographically distributed sourcing model. In Japan, Peter Sayn-Wittgenstein unlocks deal flow through his leadership community network TeamFirst. In the UK and Europe, Nick von Westenholz originated investments into Klura Labs and Lavoit. The firm also draws on a network of named operators including MidJourney founder David Holz and former ADIA private equity head Georges Elhedery for domain-specific sourcing and diligence.

Starship is structured as a traditional venture capital asset manager, not a family office. It raised an institutional-style debut fund of over $30 million from external limited partners. The firm operates as a private equity manager focused on early-stage deep tech.

Starship has not publicly disclosed its co-investment posture. No formal co-investment program or club deal structure appears in its materials. Given the firm's early-stage deep tech mandate, it likely participates primarily in primary fund rounds, but explicit co-investment activity with external GPs has not been reported.