As 2025 comes to a close, we’re reflecting on a year that didn’t just validate our approach — it sharpened our focus, deepened our conviction, and strengthened the galaxy of people who make nvp capital what it is.

Last year, we talked about vertical AI entering its “deployment era.” This year, we watched that story unfold in real time. Across manufacturing floors, healthcare systems, retail environments, insurance workflows, legal processes, and beyond, we saw the same truth echo again and again:

When exceptional founders with lived experience build AI-native companies for the under-digitized industries they know best, those companies don’t just launch — they gain traction, earn trust, and grow with purpose.

This was the year our thesis accelerated. But more importantly, this was a year our founders executed. To understand where we’re going, it helps to look at where the story proved itself first: Fund I.

fund I portfolio strength: execution that shows up in outcomes

Momentum is meaningful. Results are definitive. Fund I delivered both, and the progress across the portfolio this year tells the clearest story of all.

Fund I continues to perform exceptionally well, ranking in the top quartile of 2020-vintage funds, (according to Aduro’s Q3 2025 Fund Performance Benchmark Report) and founders executing with discipline, purpose, and rigor.

This year, we celebrated important milestones across the portfolio:

• Vulcan Elements raised a $65M Series A led by Altimeter and OneIM and secured a landmark $1.4B partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and ReElement Technologies to build a domestic rare earth magnet supply chain.
  
• Pair Team saw a ~3x growth rate and achieved significant clinical and commercial milestones, including a peer-reviewed JGIM study showing meaningful reductions in acute-care utilization and national expansion in Nevada. From early traction at the time of our investment to meaningful scale and profitability today, Pair Team is a standout example of disciplined, high-impact growth.
  
• Vitable demonstrated tremendous growth and vaulted into the ultra-select group of venture-backed companies exceeding $10M+ ARR — a milestone achieved by well under 1% of startups.
  
• Optimal Dynamics announced a $40M Series C to scale its AI-powered freight optimization across logistics.
  
• Handspring Health demonstrated a ~300% growth rate and raised a $12M Series A to expand access to pediatric mental health care, where we proudly participated as Day-One backers.
  
• Compyl closed a $12M Series A led by Venture Guides to expand its unified GRC platform.
  
  

fund II: the next chapter in our story

Strong performance earns the right to keep building. In 2025, that took shape in one of the most meaningful moments in our firm’s journey: the close of nvp capital Fund II at $80M, a signal of trust in our approach, our team, and the founders we partner with.

We are deeply grateful to our long-standing partners — including Prudential Financial, Rutgers University Endowment, Ford Foundation, Audible (an Amazon company), RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey Economic Development Authority, and Horizon Mutual Holdings, Inc. — as well as the families and individual investors who have been with us from the early days and continue to support our work. Your conviction in our approach to backing founders in high-stakes, under-digitized markets has been foundational to our progress.

We were also pleased to welcome several new institutional partners this year, including Liberty Mutual Investments and New York City Economic Development Corporation, alongside a leading global investment institution. Their support further strengthens our platform and expands what’s possible — not only for nvp capital, but for the founders we serve.

With Fund II closed, nvp capital now manages approximately $200M in assets. Fund II isn’t just a fundraising achievement. It represents conviction in the industries that matter most, and in the founders determined to reshape them.

nvp capital’s latest bets + companies to watch in 2026:

In 2025, we leaned deeper into what defines nvp capital at its core: backing founders who have lived the problems they’re solving, who know the workflows cold, and who are building AI not as a buzzword, but as a tool to make industries stronger, safer, and more efficient.

We led or co-led eight new seed rounds, including:

• Hetal Retail founded by David Roger, Bobby Shomrony, Michael Rostowsky, and Mike Walters (the team behind Felix Gray), helping brands ensure products are in the right stores, on the right shelves, at the right time.
  
• Upscale AI built by repeat founders Kevin Weatherman, Herman Yang, Mike Chang, and Seth Yates, the first end-to-end AI advertising platform for performance campaigns on streaming TV.
  
• Patrol from 2x founders Sam Rotner and Nico van Wijk, helping online brands and small businesses become accessible and ADA compliant.
  
• Laborup founded by Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholar Simba Jonga, using AI to automate hiring for skilled industrial workers, solving one of manufacturing’s most persistent bottlenecks.
  
• Thoughtly founded by repeat entrepreneurs Torrey Leonard and Will Del Principe, delivering AI-powered voice agents for revenue and operations teams.
  
• Advance led by Omer Rimoch (previously founder of Israeli fintech Payem) and co-founder Gal Dreiman, helping insurers unlock more value from premiums while streamlining underwriting and operational workflows. Omer’s move from Tel Aviv to NYC reflects the growing AI financial ecosystem taking shape here.
  
• Parambil founded by Sara Cordrey, provides AI-assisted medical record review built for accuracy and efficiency in tort litigation and claims, with a long-term vision to support the broader litigation workflow
  
• Italic Health started by repeat founder Kyle Michelson, Italic is building the identity and memory layer for healthcare, starting with AI-native SSO that reduces friction and unlocks longitudinal patient data. Michelson has a rare combination of deep healthcare credibility, proven execution, and perfect timing as market and regulatory forces converge.

We are proud that we led or co-led every Fund II investment and we are deeply proud of who we backed: repeat founders, deeply technical leaders, and operators with lived industry expertise.

growing the team to match the moment

As our platform evolved, so did our team.

This year:

• Jennifer Solomon became Head of Platform, expanding how we help founders tell their stories, build community, and win in market – ensuring our platform truly functions as an extension of the teams we back.
  
• Kelly Scherrer joined as Head of Finance & Operations, bringing deep venture fund experience from Flare Capital Partners and PwC, strengthening the operational and financial backbone of everything we do.

Their leadership, along with Skylar Dorosin’s work sourcing deals and strengthening our founder and investor ecosystem, has already made nvp sharper, more focused, and even more founder-forward.

the conversations and ideas behind the work

2025 was also the year we leaned into elevating the conversations that matter.

We launched Between Two Quarters, hosted by Managing Partner Dan Borok, to create honest, founder-first dialogue about commercialization, building inside legacy industries, and what real-world AI adoption actually looks like. Guests included leaders such as Cynthia Chu (Audible), Amel Edmond (Withum) and portfolio founders Charley Dehoney (Upwell) and Simba Jonga (Laborup).

We also deepened the intellectual foundation of our approach with new content, including:

• Investing in Vertical AI — our core thesis on why AI-native companies built for under-digitized, high-stakes industries are creating asymmetric opportunity.
  
• AI’s Gearshift: Investing in Industrial Intelligence — how vertical AI is reshaping the factory floor and redefining productivity in the industrial economy.
  
• AI’s Rx: Prescribing a Revolution in Healthcare — where AI can meaningfully close gaps in care delivery and unlock new models for patient support.
  
• Pricing for Vertical AI Startups — practical guidance for founders navigating the most important—and often misunderstood—piece of early commercialization.

These weren’t thought pieces for the sake of publishing. They are tools to help founders build better, faster, smarter.

validation that fuels the road ahead

This year brought meaningful visibility to the work our founders and our team are doing — not as a victory lap, but as validation. And validation matters because it transforms instinct into clarity. It reminds us that the work ahead is bigger than the milestones behind us. So the real question is: where do we go from here?

That forward-looking work is strengthened by the confidence others have placed in our approach:

• TIME named nvp capital one of America’s Top Venture Capital Firms.
  
• Vaughn Crowe, Managing Partner, was named to the Power100 for leadership, service, and national impact.
  
• Vaughn also joinedSenior Forbes reporter Jabari Young, on The Enterprise Zone to discuss fund II, AI in legacy industries, and the future of early-stage investing.
  
  

strengthening the galaxy

If closing fund II was the headline of our year, our nvp galaxy of partners and founders was the heartbeat.

In 2025, we hosted 30+ gatherings to deepen connection across founders, LPs, and co-investors – from intimate dinners to The Vibe, our NY Tech Week rooftop event, to fireside conversations on the future of vertical AI.

We brought people together at professional sporting events, hosted active meetups like our Tees & Terms golf day and Holiday Slam Tennis, and showed up at Tech Weeks coast to coast.

And our second annual AGM featuring Toyin Ajayi (Cityblock) and Bob Carrigan (Audible) anchored the year with powerful conversations on leadership and building enduring companies.

These weren’t just events. They were where community turned into collaboration.

looking ahead

Legacy industries are modernizing faster than before. AI-native workflows are becoming foundational, not optional. And the next decade will be defined by founders who understand the industries they serve as deeply as they understand the technology they’re building.

To our LPs, co-investors, advisors, and the founders who trust us as partners: thank you. 2025 was a big year, but we’re just getting started: Here’s to the breakthroughs ahead  – and to building together.