Vela Partners
Status
ACTIVE
Global HQ
San Francisco, United States
Countries of investment
- United States
Investment stages
- Series A
- Series B
Industries
- Artificial intelligence & machine learning
- Enterprise software
- SaaS
- Information technology
- Fintech
- Digital health
About
Vela Partners is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on fintech and insurtech infrastructure. Their focus spans the United States. The firm supports founders from Series A through Series B stages.
Vela Partners is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on fintech and insurtech infrastructure. Their focus spans the United States. The firm supports founders from Series A through Series B stages.
Investment Thesis
Vela Partners is a Series A-to-B venture firm investing in fintech and insurtech infrastructure companies, founded by former operators and investors from the payments and insurance sectors. The firm differentiates itself through operator-led diligence and a network spanning insurance carriers and financial infrastructure players.
Manager's Experience
Co-founded in 2017 in San Francisco by Yigit Ihlamur, a former Google senior program manager, and Fuat Alican, after observing that VC's own internal processes lacked innovation. Describes itself as an "AI-native quant VC" using proprietary ML models to back AI founders at seed; has deployed across three funds with 50+ portfolio companies and 10+ exits including acquisitions by Meta, Apple, LG, Dropbox and F5. Built on a five-plus-year research partnership with the University of Oxford, with a decision process requiring agreement from two human partners and one machine partner. Manages approximately $136M.
Team
Yigit Ihlamur-Co-Founder & General Partner
Fuat Alican-Co-Founder & General Partner
Portfolio
Auxia
Arena
ReFiBuy
Vieu
Cartken
Nominal
Base Operations
Lightup
Axiom Cloud
WaveOne
ProtoPie
Promoted.ai
Bito