Fontinalis Partners, a mobility-focused venture firm with offices in Detroit and Boston, today announced the closing of its $104 million third fund, Fontinalis III.
Founded in 2009 by operators and investors with a vision that continued advances in technology would create immense improvements in the way people and goods move, Fontinalis has made more than 50 overall investments and achieved approximately 20 exits spanning initial public offerings (IPO), special-purpose acquisition company mergers (SPAC), and strategic M&A transactions.
Notable investments from the firm’s prior two funds include Life360 (IPO); Telogis, acquired by Verizon; Ouster, acquired in a SPAC merger; Postmates, acquired by Postmates; nuTonomy, acquired by Aptiv; Lyft (IPO), and more. Fontinalis has been active in a wide range of mobility themes, including electric vehicles, supply chain and logistics, additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS).
“From the very beginning, we built Fontinalis Partners around a mobility thesis that we defined quite broadly — we did this intentionally because identifying emerging themes before they become mainstream requires flexibility,” says Chris Cheever, founder and partner of Fontinalis Partners.
“What strikes us as we now move into Fontinalis III is that new frontiers in technologies and business models are continuing to stretch the reach of the mobility theme. We are more excited about the next several years of investing than at any point in our firm’s history.”
Fontinalis III brings the firms total committed capital to approximately $270 million. The new fund will be focused on investing in early-stage companies, from seed to series B financing deals. The startups receiving investments will still be directly impacting the movement of people and goods, as well as ‘enabling technologies’ with outsized impacts in the mobility sector.
“As a thematically focused financial investor, we have taken an ecosystem approach to venture investing by surrounding our portfolio companies with relevant networks and resources to help them achieve their bold visions,” says Chris Stallman, partner of Fontinalis Partners. “This approach has resonated with mobility founders, and we are excited about the network effects of this approach compounding even further in this new fund.”
Fontinalis is led by partners Bill Ford, Ralph Booth, Laura Petterle, Chris Cheever, and Chris Stallman. Learn more here.
