Vice Ventures

Catharine Dockery, the firm's founder and managing partner, leads all investment decisions. She launched the firm in 2019 with a solo-GP structure and has maintained that centralized decision-making model through both fundraises. Her prior operating experience at Samuelsohn, a menswear brand, gives her a non-traditional venture background that informs her thesis on consumer-facing vice brands.

The firm makes direct seed and early-stage equity investments into operating companies and does not operate as a fund-of-funds. Dockery has not publicly raised co-investment vehicles or SPVs alongside the main funds, but the structure remains flexible enough to follow-on in portfolio companies through the fund lifecycle.

Vice Ventures focuses on pre-seed and seed rounds, occasionally extending into Series A follow-ons for existing portfolio companies. Dockery has stated her preference for being the first institutional check into a startup, entering at valuations and check sizes where other venture funds are still prohibited from participating due to internal compliance barriers.

The firm does not invest in illegal or unregulated activities — its thesis relies on legal-but-stigmatized markets. It also avoids categories where the regulatory pathway is unclear or unlikely, such as hard narcotics or unlicensed gambling. Dockery has drawn a bright line around investing only where a credible path to federal or state-level legalization exists.

Vice Ventures has not publicly structured formal co-investment programs, but Dockery has co-invested alongside angel syndicates and mission-aligned micro-VCs on a deal-by-deal basis. Given the niche, co-investors tend to be individuals or small funds without restrictive LP agreements rather than large institutional venture firms.