Open Core Ventures
Venture studioPre-Seed–Seed · 13 people tracked
Investment thesis
Open Core Ventures believes the most important future software companies are emerging from the open source community. Leveraging deep roots in open source and pattern recognition from hundreds of investments, the firm identifies durable business opportunities before they are widely considered fundable. When a project clears its bar, OCV starts a company and works alongside the founding team, pairing open source creators with experienced operators and providing structure to scale. It recruits both founding CTOs (open source creators) and founding CEOs (operators) to build venture-scale open core businesses using a proven playbook.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 3, 2026.
Team · 13 people
from the firm's website
What they invest in
from 17 of 21 portfolio companiesDeveloper Tools ×11AI & Machine Learning ×9Enterprise Software ×8SaaS ×6Cybersecurity ×5Data & Infrastructure ×4Cloud Computing ×2IoT ×2
HQs:United States×5
Who they back
founder profiles across 8 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×32 founders×43 founders×1
Investments · 21 tracked
founders shown can be your intro path
GitLab is an intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps that enables teams and AI agents to collaborate on the full software development lifecycle, from planning through deployment, with integrated security and compliance capabilities.
AI & Machine LearningCybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Sid Sijbrandij(Founder/CEO)inDmytro Zaporozhets(Founder/CTO)inDmitriy Zaporozhets(Cofounder)Paul Machle(Executive Officer)
BoardBruce Armstrong(Director)in
Co-investorsAlkeon InnovationAugust CapitalBase PartnersBling CapitalCategory VenturesCoatue Management+21 more
authentik is an open-source identity management platform that provides single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and zero trust security capabilities for organizations.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise Software
Co-investorsAviso Ventures
Fleet Device Management is the company behind an open-source device management platform that enrolls millions of laptops, servers, and other devices across Apple, Linux, Windows, and Android.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise Software
Zach Wasserman(Cofounder)Mike McNeil(CEO)
Co-investorsCRV (Charles River Ventures)Moonfire VenturesStoneMill VenturesTen ElevenGTMfund
FlowFuse is an industrial application platform, built on the open-source Node-RED runtime, that lets manufacturing teams build, deploy, and govern operational workflows across multiple plant sites.
Advanced ManufacturingDeveloper ToolsIoTSaaSSan Francisco, US
Nick O'Leary(Founder)inZeger-Jan van de Weg(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardMarkus Grundmann(Director)inAditya Singh(Director)Betty Ma(Director)
Co-investorsBright Pixel CapitalCota CapitalSenovo
Kedify provides a turnkey autoscaling platform for Kubernetes, built on the open-source KEDA project, that combines telemetry intake, resource right-sizing recommendations, HTTP/queue/GPU and multi-cluster autoscaling, and FinOps cost reporting.
Cloud ComputingDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Zbyněk Roubalík(Founder)
Lucenia provides an open-source enterprise search and analytics engine built on Apache Lucene, designed for organizations seeking AI-native search capabilities without vendor lock-in.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSan Francisco, US
Nicholas Knize(Founder & CEO)
Co-investorsAmity Ventures
Open source project turned into a full-time company with OCV backing.
Co-investorsFirebrand VenturesGood FriendsStreamlined VenturesTRAC (Third Round Analytics Capital)V1 VCMana Ventures
OpenCoreEMR develops flexible, intuitive electronic medical records software for healthcare providers to manage patient care with reduced administrative friction.
Digital HealthHealthtechSaaS
Selora Homes develops AI-powered enterprise software solutions built on the open-source Home Assistant platform for professional smart home installers and integrators.
AI & Machine LearningIoTPropTech
Philippe Lafoucrière(Founder & Chief Technology Officer)Mike Miranda(Co-Founder & Head of Growth)
Stirling PDF is an open-source PDF processing platform that provides editing, classification, and automation tools for individual and enterprise-scale document workflows.
CybersecurityDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareSaaS
Company built with OCV support.
SurfSense is an open-source, NotebookLM-style research platform that lets users and AI agents pull live data from sources like Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Indeed, Google Maps, Google Search, Amazon, and Walmart through platform-native REST APIs or an MCP server.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Exits · 1
IPOs and acquisitions across the tracked portfolioGitLabNASDAQ: GTLB
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companies
GitLab · kavout.com · Jul 17, 2026
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has Open Core Ventures made?
- Open Core Ventures has 21 tracked investments, 1 of which have exited via acquisition or IPO.
- What stage does Open Core Ventures invest at?
- Open Core Ventures invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed stages.
- What sectors does Open Core Ventures focus on?
- Open Core Ventures focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Data & Infrastructure, Developer Tools, Enterprise Software, SaaS.
- Who does Open Core Ventures co-invest with?
- Open Core Ventures most often shares deals with August Capital, CRV (Charles River Ventures), Felicis Ventures, among 37 tracked co-investors.
Media · Podcasts & interviews
featuring the teamSid Sijbrandij (Open Core Ventures) & Bassam Tabbara on Distributed Storage, Ceph, and Rook
Open Core Ventures (OCV) · Sid Sijbrandij
Serving Voice AI 3x Faster with vLLM-Omni
Open Core Ventures (OCV)
Introducing Pulsey, our virtual Ops coworker
Open Core Ventures (OCV)
Founder Roundtable: Pricing Page Review
Open Core Ventures (OCV)
September 2025 Roundtable
Open Core Ventures (OCV)
AI Automation Developer
Open Core Ventures (OCV)
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