Streetlife Ventures

Streetlife Ventures

Streetlife Ventures was co-founded in New York by Sonam Velani and Laura Fox, two operators who entered venture capital from the public-sector and infrastructure trenches. Velani previously financed $10 billion of transportation, energy, and water projects at Goldman Sachs and helped develop New York City’s $15 billion Green New Deal at the Mayor's Office. Fox built Lyft's Citi Bike into a $120M ARR business and advised Bloomberg Philanthropies on urban investment strategy. That combined policy, finance, and operating DNA shapes the firm's posture: investing in companies that build climate-resilient urban infrastructure. The firm runs a sector-concentrated venture strategy focused on mobility and logistics, buildings, energy, water and waste, and urban climate adaptation. Streetlife invests in B2B pre-seed and seed-stage companies across North America and Europe that have at least a beta product and two or more pilots. Confirmed portfolio positions span hardware and software across the built environment: Rhizome, an arbitrage platform funding energy retrofits in large residential and commercial buildings; DaisyChain Energy, a hardware-plus-VPP thermal battery system; Harvest Thermal, which lowers tenant energy bills through energy brokering and community solar; and Trainsit, a rail-freight optimization platform that reduces shipment costs by more than 30% and emissions by more than 75%. The geographic footprint includes North American and European startups. Streetlife operates out of New York, and the co-founders have built adjacent platforms to extend their influence beyond the portfolio. Velani launched Climate Tech Cities, a community platform that aggregates climate events and convenes talent through a weekly newsletter and site visits to climate infrastructure projects. Fox serves as an Executive-in-Residence at NYU Stern, where she teaches MBA strategy courses, and sits on the board of Governors Island, the designated test-bed for climate innovation in New York City. Recent activity: Velani continues to expand the Climate Tech Cities network to connect policymakers, engineers, and climate operators with high-growth startups. The structural differentiator is the firm's deliberate straddle of public and private spheres: both managing directors hold deep public-sector experience that gives them visibility into municipal procurement cycles, permitting pathways, and infrastructure project finance, access typically absent from traditional early-stage venture firms. Community building via Climate Tech Cities creates a proprietary sourcing funnel that operates between city agencies, utilities, and startup founders.