Vertical Venture Partners

David Schwab is the founder and managing partner and drives investment decisions. His prior experience at Sierra Ventures and Monitor Ventures shaped the firm's vertical-software thesis. The firm maintains a lean partnership structure typical of seed-stage micro-VCs, with Schwab as the central decision-maker on new commitments.

VVP sources through domain-specific networks tied to the verticals it targets—healthcare, robotics, and industrial automation among them. Because the firm cannot invest in horizontal SaaS or consumer tech, its origination relies on relationships with industry operators, domain-expert angels, and research institutions that produce specialized founders. This narrow aperture means fewer but more intentionally sourced deals.

VVP typically leads or co-leads seed rounds in its portfolio companies, writing initial checks of $500,000 to $2 million. The firm reserves capital for pro-rata follow-on investments in companies that achieve early product-market fit within their vertical.

The firm's mandate explicitly excludes horizontal enterprise software, consumer internet, marketplaces that lack a strong vertical workflow component, and capital-intensive hardware with no software layer. Its thesis is built on vertical-specific workflow digitization, automation, and analytics—sectors outside that frame are not considered.

Vertical Venture Partners is a traditional venture capital firm, structured as an asset manager with external limited partners. Early backers included family offices and endowments, but the firm itself is not a family office. It operates as an early-stage fund manager raising committed capital from institutional and private investors.

VVP reserves capital for follow-on rounds in portfolio companies that show strong vertical penetration. The firm does not operate an opportunistic special-purpose vehicle model for later-stage bets; follow-ons are typically pro-rata exercises within existing fund structures.

VVP runs a concentrated portfolio typical of thesis-driven micro-VC funds, with fewer than two dozen active positions by design. This allows the high-touch engagement model the firm emphasizes—partner-level involvement in go-to-market strategy and early customer introductions within each startup's target vertical.