Recent Articles
29We’re Bio-Bullish
For over a decade, we’ve been spending time in health and bio. It’s a category we’ve been watching closely. In the early
5/19/2026
Announcing Our Investment in Swoop
We’re excited to share that Swoop has raised $7.3M, with participation from Version One alongside our friends at Long Jo
4/23/2026
Announcing our investment in GridBank
Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve co-led the $6M seed round of GridBank , a company building the global transa
4/7/2026
Q1 2026 Portfolio in Review
We’re a quarter of the way through 2026, and the V1 family is off to a fast start. Across the portfolio, teams are build
4/2/2026
Five Posts That Define How We Think
Over the past 13+ years, we’ve written a lot on this blog — investment announcements, portfolio recaps, year-in-re
3/2/2026
Pluto Mobility Raises $2 Million in Seed Funding led by Version One - Mercomindia.com
2/20/2026
Announcing our investment in Pluto, solving last-mile delivery at the vehicle level
Last-mile delivery is one of those markets that looks simple at first glance—until you dig in and realize how much of it
2/19/2026
Pluto Mobility raises $2 mn seed round led by Version One Ventures - The Economic Times B2B
2/19/2026
Pluto Mobility raises $2 Mn in seed round - entrackr.com
2/19/2026
Version One leads funding in Pluto Mobility and other India deals - DealStreetAsia
2/19/2026
Pluto Mobility Raises $2 Mn To Launch EV Delivery Vehicles - Inc42
2/19/2026
Q4 2025 portfolio recap (+ Happy New Year!)
Happy New Year! The final quarter of 2025 brought meaningful momentum across the V1 portfolio, with founders closing Q4
1/5/2026
Top 9 Venture Capital Firms in Vancouver (2026) - Failory
12/22/2025
2025 Year in Review
After more than 13 years of building Version One, 2025 was easily one of our wildest years—in the best possible way. We
12/18/2025
Announcing Our Investment in Arctus Aerospace: Building High-Altitude Autonomy
We’re excited to share that Arctus Aerospace has raised a $2.6M pre-seed round , led by Version One Ventures alongside S
12/1/2025
Arctus Aerospace secures $2.6 million from Version One Ventures, others - The Economic Times
11/26/2025
Backing Loon: Building Canada’s Digital Dollar
We’re excited to announce our investment in Loon , a Canadian company building the country’s first regulated digital dol
10/27/2025
Loon Raises $3 Million to Build Canada's Regulated Digital Dollar; Acquires CADC Stablecoin - PR Newswire
10/27/2025
Loon Raises $3 Million to Launch Regulated Canadian Stablecoin - Calgary.Tech
10/27/2025
Q3 2025 Portfolio in Review
It’s hard to believe we’re already three quarters into the year. At V1, we’re all about finishing strong, and Q3 gave us
10/7/2025
Three Years of ChatGPT: Where We Are With AI Today
This November marks three years since the launch of ChatGPT. That moment brought AI into the mainstream, with large lang
8/26/2025
TRIC Robotics Clinches $5.5M to Scale UV Automation for Sustainable Strawberry Farming - Global AgInvesting
8/14/2025
Announcing our investment in TRIC Robotics – Automating pest and disease control
Robotics has been a core focus of my time in deep tech. I recently wrote a post sharing our considerations on robotics a
7/23/2025
Q2 2025 Portfolio Review
It’s been an eventful quarter (when has it not?), and somehow we’ve already crossed the halfway mark of 2025. We wanted
6/30/2025
Boris Wertz thinks science is the new moat for Canadian tech - BetaKit
6/24/2025
Wertz of Wisdom: Version One’s Boris Reflects on 10 Years of Investing - techcouver.com
6/22/2022
Version One Ventures raises $100 million USD for two new funds - BetaKit
6/8/2021
Boris Wertz’s Version One Ventures wins big as Coinbase shares soar in debut - The Globe and Mail
4/14/2021
Version One Ventures raises $45M for third fund, keeps close eye on Seattle ecosystem - GeekWire
10/17/2018
Investment Signals
18Biology is becoming more engineerable through AI and biotech tooling, representing a Version One moment where the intersection of deep science and AI creates a significant investable opportunity.
Launching a special investment vehicle led by a former bio founder to back earliest-stage biotinkerers working through scientific and technical risk.
Ideal biotech founders are deeply technical but not traditionally trained in biology, bring outsider perspectives enabled by AI, collaborate with world-class scientists, and focus on commercializing existing research through creative regulatory paths.
Invested in four stealth-mode biotech companies spanning protein modeling, phage technology, AI cell design, and immune system mapping platforms.
AI and biotech tooling advances have compressed development cycles and enabled a new generation of technical founders to solve long-standing biology problems, making biotech investable at scale.
V1 is backing second-life EV battery storage solutions, with Moment Energy recognized as Global Cleantech 100 leader.
V1 is invested in composable DeFi infrastructure and stablecoins gaining scale, with MetaMask-Uniswap integration and Loon's CADC surpassing $300M volume.
V1 is focused on AI-native infrastructure and tools that integrate more context into AI-driven workflows for productivity gains.
Neo Financial raised nearly $70M in equity, moving toward a securitization model typical of major banks.
Shellworks raised $15M Series A to build compostable, biomass-based packaging solutions as plastic alternatives.
V1 led Pluto Mobility's seed round for delivery-grade electric vehicles designed for last-mile logistics.
Physical AI and real-time authentic content sourcing represent emerging market opportunities with enterprises seeking authentic data from real-world sources.
Belief that foundational infrastructure companies for real-world data and physical AI represent significant market opportunities and category-defining investments.
Co-led $6M seed round in GridBank, a company building transaction infrastructure for real-world data capture and monetization via smartphones.
Africa has the potential to produce the next generation of global platform companies, representing a significant investment opportunity for venture capital firms.
Africa processes $18T in digital payments annually with >10% year-over-year growth, but the market remains fragmented with unsolved distribution challenges, creating an opening for platform consolidation.
Africa's digital economy is shifting from fragmented single-purpose fintech tools toward integrated platforms bundling payments, commerce, and services, mirroring the WeChat/Grab model in Asia.
Version One invested in Swoop, a super-app for Africa offering payments, food delivery, and ecommerce. The company raised $7.3M and is expanding from Eswatini to Lagos, Nigeria.