Motive Force
Venture capitalActively deployingSan Francisco · Seed–Series A · 1 people tracked
Also known as MOTIVE FORCE MANAGEMENT, LLC
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Investment thesis
The firm invests in founders driven by internal motivation and obsession refined into purpose, rather than external pressure. It emphasizes software built with care and design excellence as a compound advantage, attracting talent and creating passionate users. The investor seeks founders with taste and uncompromising standards who understand that constraints demand ingenuity. By connecting founders with mentors and experts who have solved similar problems, the firm aims to help teams achieve sustainable growth without compromising on craftsmanship or product quality.
Source: firm website, verified Sep 29, 2026.
Team · 1 people
from public directoriesWhat they invest in
from 13 of 15 portfolio companiesAI & Machine Learning ×11Developer Tools ×9Cloud Computing ×6Enterprise Software ×5SaaS ×5Data & Infrastructure ×2Cybersecurity ×1Digital Health ×1
HQs:United States×8
Who they back
founder profiles across 12 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×42 founders×53 founders×24+ founders×1
What their founders studiedfrom 17 founders with field-of-study data
Computer Science ×8Engineering ×4Economics ×2Physics ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 17 founders with career history
Google ×5Ditto ×3IBM ×2Microsoft ×2Parse ×2Townsquared ×2
Investments · 15 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBacca is an autonomous AI engineer that monitors production software, triages and investigates issues, applies fixes within configurable guardrails, and escalates to humans only when needed.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Eric Lu(Founder)inXinran He(Founder)inYuan Bai(Founder)in
Co-investorsHomebrewRebellion VenturesUbiquity Ventures
Charm builds open-source tools and libraries for creating user interfaces and applications in the terminal, including command-line interface frameworks, markdown readers, and components for developers.
Developer Tools
Co-investorsBetaworksCavalry VenturesGradient VenturesLowercarbon CapitalNAPF-Prime Capital+5 more
Delphina builds AI data agents, end-to-end analytics workflows, and shareable data apps that teams can generate from prompts and refine in chat.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Duncan Gilchrist(Founder)in
Co-investorsRadical VenturesCostanoa Ventures
HealthLeap builds data-driven safety systems that identify patients in need of clinical care, helping healthcare providers reach patients who might otherwise be missed.
AI & Machine LearningDigital HealthHealthtech
Josiah(Founder, AI-focused entrepreneur)Jemima Meyer, RD(SA)(Founder)in
Co-investorsFifty YearsHummingbird VenturesTranspose Platform Management
Honeycomb provides observability and monitoring software that helps engineering teams understand how their software behaves in production.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Charity Majors(Co-founder & CTO)inChristine Yen(CEO & Co-founder)in
Co-investorsAfore CapitalDCVC (Data Collective)Merian VenturesOMERS VenturesScale Venture PartnersStorm Ventures+5 more
Inngest is an execution layer for agents and workflows that helps engineers build and optimize event-driven workflows without manual retry logic or queue management.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsRoyal Oak, US
Tony Holdstock-Brown(CEO & Founder)Dan Farrelly(CTO & Founder)in
BoardJamin Ball(Director)inDan Cahana(Director)in
Co-investorsAfore CapitalAndreessen HorowitzNotable CapitalPreston-Werner VenturesAltimeter CapitalBanana Capital+4 more
MaintainX provides an AI-powered computerized maintenance management system and asset management platform designed for deskless frontline workers in industrial and operational settings.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareIoTSaaSSan Francisco, US
Chris Turlica(Head of MaintainX; co-founder)inHugo Dozois-Caouette(Head of Product, MaintainX; co-founder)inStefan Cristian Turlica(Executive Officer, Director)Nick Haase(Founder)in
BoardCharles Reim(Director)Byron Deeter(Director)in
Co-investorsAmity VenturesAugust CapitalBain Capital VenturesBessemer Venture PartnersCategory VenturesCrew Capital+10 more
Mem is an AI note-taking and personal-agent app that captures notes, meetings and research and resurfaces them as context.
Los Altos, US
Kevin Moody(Founder)in
Co-investorsAndreessen HorowitzDreamers VCFloodgateShrug CapitalUnusual Ventures
Observe.AI builds an AI agent platform that enables businesses to deploy specialized autonomous agents to handle customer conversations, support frontline teams, and optimize contact center operations.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkSaaSSales TechSan Francisco, US
Swapnil Jain(CEO & Co-Founder)inJithendra Vepa(CTO & Co-Founder)in
Co-investorsMenlo VenturesScale Venture PartnersNexus Venture Partners01 AdvisorsCommon OceanEMERGENT VENTURES+14 more
OpenComputer is an open durable runtime for AI agents, running each session on a persistent virtual machine with full OS access that hibernates when idle and resumes with state intact after crashes or redeploys.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper Tools
Overmind is a platform that simulates the live production environment to show engineers the blast radius, dependencies, and risks of infrastructure changes before a pull request is merged.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSaaS
Dylan Ratcliffe(Founder)in
Co-investorsOperator CollectiveOsney Capital14Peaks CapitalAntlerKortschak Investments L.P.Portfolio Ventures+1 more
Plural is a developer-focused company building around Kubernetes and related technologies (Elixir, Go, React) to enable collaboration among developers.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsSaaS
Samuel Weaver(Founder)in
Co-investorsPrimary Venture PartnersSignalFireAtomicoNeoclassic CapitalParadigmVOLT CAPITAL
Poolside builds open-weight foundation models and agentic coding models, including the Laguna family, along with the systems and infrastructure needed to train, refine, and improve these models.
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper Tools
Jason Warner(Founder & CEO)inEiso Kant(Founder)
Co-investors20VC7GC & CoAbstraction CapitalAir Street CapitalB Capital GroupB4 Capital+26 more
Zuplo builds an API management and gateway platform designed to fit into developers' existing tools and workflows.
AI & Machine LearningCloud ComputingCybersecurityDeveloper ToolsSaaSRedmond, US
Nathan Totten(Executive Officer, Director)inJonjo Twist(Executive Officer, Director)Josh Twist(Founder)in
BoardYuval Neeman(Director)
Co-investorsboldstart venturesBoxGroupTrilogy Equity Partners
Other
Tracked investments with no reachable website or further public details — typically companies that wound down, renamed, or were absorbed.
Soffi
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companiesOvermind · finsmes.com · Sep 17, 2025
Inngest · inngest.com · Sep 16, 2025
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has Motive Force made?
- Motive Force has 15 tracked investments, 1 of which have exited.
- What stage does Motive Force invest at?
- Motive Force invests at the Seed, Series A stages.
- What sectors does Motive Force focus on?
- Motive Force focuses on SaaS.
- Where is Motive Force located?
- Motive Force is headquartered in San Francisco, US.
- Who does Motive Force co-invest with?
- Motive Force most often shares deals with Afore Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, among 74 tracked co-investors.
Images
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