IOVC focuses exclusively on backing the best fractional founders at the earliest stages of company building, investing earlier than any other investors or accelerators. The firm combines capital with education and community support specifically designed for founders transitioning from part-time to full-time ventures.

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Investment Thesis

IOVC invests in fractional founders—entrepreneurs who are actively transforming part-time projects into full-time startups while maintaining their full-time jobs. The firm believes the best founders validate their ideas part-time before committing full-time, and has conducted extensive research showing that 6 out of 7 trillion-dollar U.S. companies were founded fractionally, and 1 in 4 Fortune 500 companies were started fractionally. Rather than viewing part-time founders as ‘less serious,’ IOVC sees them as disciplined validators who build for underserved users and customers they intimately understand.

What Sets Them Apart

  • Only investors focused exclusively on fractional founders
  • Invest earlier than other investors or accelerators in founder lifecycle
  • Former founders themselves, now investing in fractional founders
  • Teach entrepreneurship at Stanford and UC Berkeley
  • Quantitative research backing the fractional founder thesis (6/7 trillion-dollar companies)
  • Tailored 'advise-to-invest' program for fractional founders not yet ready to fundraise
  • Host largest founder community across Berkeley and Stanford (Decode)
  • Operate pop-up board sessions with C-suite executives
  • Provide comprehensive founder resources: AI prompt library, tactical tips videos, courses

Portfolio Highlights

Rescale

Infrastructure|Cloud Computing

Boom Supersonic

Aerospace|Hardware

Checkr

Hr Tech|Background Checks

Woolf

Edtech|Higher Education

Imbue

Ai Ml|Ai Agents

TeachShare

Edtech|Ai

Convex

Saas|Commercial Services

AnswersAI

Edtech|Ai

+ 21 more companies in their portfolio

Investment Team

21 Partners at IOVC

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