How many investments has Unless made?

Unless has 17 tracked investments, including 3 dated in the last 24 months.

What stage does Unless invest at?

Unless invests at the Seed, Series A stages.

Where is Unless located?

Unless is headquartered in Boulder, US.

Does Unless lead rounds?

Unless typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.

Who does Unless co-invest with?

Unless most often shares deals with Blackhorn Ventures, Evolution VC Partners, Tectonic Ventures, among 61 tracked co-investors.

Unless

Venture capital

Boulder · Seed–Series A · 8 people tracked

★ Follow + Add to CRM ⤳ Find an introduction

Find your way into Unless

3,360 people in our graph share verified history with the Unless team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.

Josh Wolfeunlockedknows Trevor Zimmerman · together at Kurion, Inc. (overlapped)

knows the team · via Amaranth

knows the team · via Blackhorn Ventures

×2knows the team · via Montgomery Securities

×2knows the team · via Founders Fund

×5knows the team · via Bridgewater Associates

✨ Fox Verdict

Investment thesis

Unless positions itself as reinventing venture capital for what it calls the New Industrial Revolution. It invests in companies transforming core industrial systems—supply chains, manufacturing, energy, and transportation—that are undergoing generational change driven by geopolitics, climate response, technological innovation, and shifting workforce dynamics. The firm applies deep domain expertise alongside a perpetual capital structure designed to support companies over long, industrially relevant timescales. Its partners operate at the frontiers of manufacturing, automation, climate adaptation, and the changing nature of work.

Invests inAdvanced Manufacturing AI & Machine Learning Cleantech Climate Tech Deep Tech Defense Tech Energy Future of Work Logistics & Supply Chain Robotics SaaS Boulder United States

Source: firm website, verified Sep 29, 2026.

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Stage

Seed–Series A

Boulder, Colorado, US

Leads rounds

Follows

Instruments

Equity

Founded

2021

Last 12 months

2 investments

AUM

$252.7M

Tracked investments

Unicorns

Team · 8 people

from the firm's website & public directories

Patricia Rogers· General Partner

David Mindell· Co-Founder and lead for the Unless Collective of Experts· Cambridge, Massachusetts, United Statesin

David Mindell combines historian, engineer, founder, and investor experience—plus 25+ oceanographic expeditions and deep spaceflight and undersea robotics work—to back industrial and autonomy startups that operate reliably in harsh environments.

david@unless.co

Trevor Zimmerman· Co-Founder & Managing Partner· United Statesin

Trevor Zimmerman co-founded two platforms focused on resource efficiency and industrial transformation, bringing nuclear waste and radionuclide treatment engineering experience and lending technical credibility to industrial automation and infrastructure tech.

trevor@unless.co

Josh Blanchfield· Partner & CIO - Perpetual Alpha· Boulder, Colorado, United Statesin

Josh Blanchfield has worked in financial markets for about 14 years, focused on helping large institutional investors build their portfolios. He spent 11 years at Bridgewater Associates in research, trading, and client roles, including three years in China establishing offices in Beijing and Shanghai and designing China-specific investment strategies, and led asset allocation research for clients such as central banks and sovereign wealth funds. He holds a degree in physics from Harvard University.

Michael Polansky· Partner - Alpha Access· San Franciscoin

Michael Polansky is CEO of the Parker Group, a San Francisco-based organization managing the business, investment, political, and charitable interests of Sean Parker. He previously worked as a Senior Investment Associate at Bridgewater and as a Principal at Founders Fund, where he covered consumer internet and emerging technology. He holds a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Harvard University.

Peter Joers· Partner - Alpha Access· Seattle, Washington, United Statesin

Peter Joers has three decades of experience investing across public and private markets as both an advisor and principal. He co-founded a real estate business and the investment advisory firm Greenline Partners, which he sold in 2019, and previously worked as a Client Advisor at Bridgewater Associates advising pension plans and endowments. Earlier in his career he held senior roles at Bank of America and Montgomery Securities. He holds a B.A. from the University of Washington and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Trish Rogers· General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer· Boulder, Colorado, United Statesin

Trish Rogers is General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Unless. She was previously an equity partner at Moye White LLP, where she co-chaired the Financial Institutions Group and worked in the firm's impact investment and social entrepreneurship practice. Her legal background covers debt and equity investments, entity structuring, M&A, corporate governance, and private capital fund formation and regulatory compliance.

Aaron Marsh· CFO· Boulder, Colorado, United Statesin

Aaron Marsh is the CFO of Unless, where he handles the firm's financial analysis and public market product development. He previously served as CFO and COO of Signal Infrastructure Group, a media-sector technology infrastructure startup, and spent about a decade at investment funds Duquesne Capital and Amaranth Advisors, working across private equity, credit, and public equity strategies. He also worked in education and holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Williams College.

aaron@unless.co

Founder mafia

2 people who came through Unless went on to found or lead other companies.

David MindellCo-Founder and lead for the Unless Collective of ExpertsFounded Humatics Michael PolanskyPartner - Alpha AccessFounded Bunsen

What they invest in

from 11 of 17 portfolio companies

AI & Machine Learning ×7Deep Tech ×4Enterprise Software ×4Hardware ×4Advanced Manufacturing ×3SaaS ×3B2B Marketplaces ×2Logistics & Supply Chain ×2

HQs:United States×10Netherlands×1

Who they back

founder profiles across 7 portfolio companies

27%

repeat founders

of 11 founders with career history

Where their founders worked beforefrom 11 founders with career history

SM&A ×2

Investments · 17 tracked

founders shown can be your intro path

By year:2026 · 2 2025 · 1 2022 · 1 2021 · 1 2018 · 27 dated

Aether Bioaetherbio.com in 𝕏

Aether develops additives that blend into engineering-grade nylons to enable faster, high-throughput fused filament (FFF/FDM) 3D printing while maintaining mechanical strength and dimensional accuracy.

Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningBiotechDeep TechHardwareNew Materials

Pavle Jeremic(Founder & CEO)in Jay Zaveri(Co-Founder & President)

Co-investors4DX Ventures Abstract Ventures Artis Ventures Blue Bear Ventures BoxGroup Calm Ventures +12 more

Afferenceafference.io in 𝕏

Afference develops neurotechnology that enables remote sensory perception through wearable devices, allowing people at a distance to share tactile sensations.

AI & Machine LearningDeep TechHardwareHealthtechCleveland, US

Jacob Segil(Co-founder & CEO)in Dustin Tyler(Co-founder & CTO)in

Board Taylor Hurst(Director)in Trevor Zimmerman(Director)in

Co-investorsAnthropy Partners CWRU Technology Ventures Evolution VC Partners Hannah Grey Ventures JobsOhio Ventures Konvoy Ventures +6 more

Alloy Enterprisesalloyenterprises.co in

Alloy Enterprises designs and manufactures thermal management and cooling solutions for high-density servers and critical IT equipment.

Advanced ManufacturingData & InfrastructureDefense TechEnterprise SoftwareHardwareSomerville, US

Alison Forsyth(Executive Officer, Director)Nicholas Mykulowycz(Executive Officer, Director)inAndrea Bedell(Executive Officer)

Co-investorsCongruent Ventures Flybridge Capital Partners Piva Capital Riot Ventures Lockheed Martin Ventures PETRONAS Ventures

Designerenosemi.com

Photonic-electronic design IP and custom silicon; acquired by AMD (NASDAQ: AMD)

Co-investorsAlliance of Angels Convergent Ventures iGlobe Partners

Offsiteoffsite.com 𝕏Apr 2025

Offsite helps companies plan and execute in-person team retreats and offsites by providing planning services, a curated marketplace of venues and vendors, and tools for event engagement and follow-up.

B2B MarketplacesEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkSaaSNew York, US

Jared Kleinert(Executive Officer, Director)in

Board Michael Cardamone(Director)in

Co-investorsGround Game Ventures Atomic Forum Ventures Tectonic Ventures

Panthalassapanthalassa.com in 𝕏

Panthalassa is building a planetary-scale clean energy platform designed to meet global energy demand through offshore deployment with zero emissions at ultra-low cost.

CleantechDeep TechEnergy

Garth Sheldon-Coulson(Founder & CEO)in

Co-investorsCompound Gigascale Capital HOF Capital Lowercarbon Capital Nimble Partners Portland Seed Fund +12 more

Positron AIpositron.ai in 𝕏Jan 2026 · $230M

Positron builds purpose-built hardware and inference accelerator silicon for running Transformer-based generative AI models, offering inference appliances that map HuggingFace Transformers models onto the hardware and expose an OpenAI API-compliant endpoint.

AI & Machine LearningHardwareSemiconductorsLovelock, US

Thomas Sohmers(Executive Officer, Director)in Barrett Woodside(Founder)in Edward Kmett(Founder)inMitesh Agrawal(Executive Officer, Director)in

BoardRobert Reid(Director)

Co-investorsAsimov Ventures Banyan Ventures Caucasus Ventures Flume Ventures Ineffable Ventures Invariantes Fund +10 more

Roktrokt.com in 𝕏Dec 2021

Rokt the Rig is a global development program launched in 2023 to identify and train talented female sim racers, culminating in competitive racing opportunities through partnerships with Oracle Red Bull Sim Racing and the FIA-backed British F4 Esports Championship.

AdTechAI & Machine LearningE-commerceMarketing TechSports TechNew York, US

Bruce Buchanan(Founder and CEO)in Patrick Connorton(Executive Officer)inWilliam Severance(Executive Officer)

BoardPaul Bassat(Director)Thomas Cowan(Director)Katie May(Director)

Co-investorsArrowroot Capital Five V Capital Square Peg Capital Highland Capital Partners Tiger Global Management Wellington Management +1 more

Sustainmentsustainment.com in 𝕏Aug 2022 · $12M

Sustainment provides software and AI tools that help US manufacturers, particularly small and medium-sized suppliers, collaborate and coordinate work across a network of local and regional suppliers.

Advanced ManufacturingAI & Machine LearningB2B MarketplacesLogistics & Supply ChainSaaSDuncan, US

Bret Boyd(Founder)inChris Hoyt(Treasurer and Secretary)Michael Michael Morford(Director and President)Joseph Kopser(Director)

Co-investorsBlackhorn Ventures Victorum

Unlessunless.com 𝕏

UNLESS is an AI-native customer success platform built for regulated European enterprises in finance, healthcare, insurance, and related sectors that require full compliance and audit trails.

AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSAmsterdam, NL

Sander Nagtegaal(Chief Executive Officer)inMarcel Panse(Chief Technology Officer)in

Co-investorsRockstart River Venture Partners Great Stuff Ventures Atomic Tectonic Ventures

Vecna Roboticsvecnarobotics.com in 𝕏Aug 2018

Vecna Robotics provides autonomous mobile robot (AMR) systems and orchestration software for material handling tasks such as case picking, cross-docking, and warehouse workflows.

Enterprise SoftwareLogistics & Supply ChainRoboticsCambridge, US

Daniel Patt(Executive Officer, Director)Michael Bearman(Executive Officer)inKarl Iagnemma in

Board Daniel Theobald(Executive Officer, Director)in Nick Solaro(Director)in

Co-investorsBlackhorn Ventures Drive Capital Fontinalis Partners Tau Ventures Tectonic Ventures Axilor Ventures +6 more

Xwingxwing.comMar 2018

Xwing, an autonomous aviation company, is now part of Joby Aviation.

AI & Machine LearningDeep TechMobility & TransportationSan Francisco, US

Marc Piette(Executive Officer, Director)in

BoardDhiraj Singh(Director)

Co-investorsACME Capital Blackhorn Ventures Loup Ventures Alven Alven Capital Array Ventures Management Llc +2 more

Other

Tracked investments with no reachable website or further public details — typically companies that wound down, renamed, or were absorbed.

555 Bryant StreetLinkedinU First CapitalVecnaVilla

Portfolio news

latest coverage across their companies

Rokt mParticle Launches Performance Engine, Led by Audience Agent

Rokt · prnewswire.com · Jun 25, 2026

Panthalassa Raises $140M in Series B Funding

Panthalassa · finsmes.com · May 5, 2026

Positron AI Raises $230M in Series B Funding

Positron AI · finsmes.com · Feb 10, 2026

Frequently asked questions

How many investments has Unless made?: Unless has 17 tracked investments, including 3 dated in the last 24 months.
What stage does Unless invest at?: Unless invests at the Seed, Series A stages.
What sectors does Unless focus on?: Unless focuses on Advanced Manufacturing, AI & Machine Learning, Cleantech, Climate Tech, Deep Tech, Defense Tech, Energy, Future of Work, Logistics & Supply Chain, Robotics, SaaS.
Where is Unless located?: Unless is headquartered in Boulder, US.
Does Unless lead rounds?: Unless typically participates in rounds rather than leading them.
Who does Unless co-invest with?: Unless most often shares deals with Blackhorn Ventures, Evolution VC Partners, Tectonic Ventures, among 61 tracked co-investors.

Images

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