Lombardstreet Ventures
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This is a classic operator-turned-VC story with Italian founders who've been quietly building a solid track record since 2016. They keep it simple with "both partners in every founder meeting, face to face" and no committees or endless back-and-forth. They don't take board seats and invest "founder-first," believing not having a board seat is in everyone's best interest. They promise same-day email responses to portfolio founders asking for advice. The catch? They strongly prefer US-based companies and Silicon Valley founders specifically, telling non-US companies to "relocate the company and founders, then come talk to us." Their $500K check size is getting small for today's market, but they seem to punch above their weight on outcomes.
- —Best for: Very early founders who want responsive, hands-on support without board interference
- —Watch out for: Small check sizes ($500K max) and strong geographic bias toward Silicon Valley
- —Known for: Same-day founder responses and 6 unicorns in an 84-company portfolio
Lombardstreet Ventures invests mostly in companies raising their first round, working with founders early on in their journey, usually during the pre-seed phase. They focus on business-to-business, software as a service, infrastructure software, open source, developer tools, API-first solutions, enterprise AI tech stack, and generative AI infrastructure verticals across the United States.
They invest up to $500,000 in each company and specialize in the pre-seed and seed stages, with "the smaller and earlier the company is, the better." Top sectors in their portfolio are Enterprise Applications (38 investments) and High Tech (24 investments), with investments spread across a wide range of sectors from Enterprise Applications to High Tech and HealthTech.
Serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in tech and internet industries who transitioned to full-time investing in 2013 after building and scaling multiple tech ventures, including a primary ISP in Italy and a private photo-sharing service in the Bay Area. His background includes a specialization in Venture Capital from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and under his leadership Lombardstreet has invested in over 20 US startups valued collectively at more than $30 billion, including nine unicorns.
Co-founded Lombardstreet Ventures in 2016/2017 with Luigi Bajetti to create a venture capital firm founded by Italians and focused on Silicon Valley startups. Despite being active as angel investors before founding the firm, they had no previous experience founding a VC company and spent about a year studying the space with lawyers and tax advisors before launching.
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