Operator Partners

About

Operator Partners is a New York-based venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg, the co-founders of Flatiron Health and Invite Media ¹. The firm launched in May 2020 as a self-funded vehicle investing exclusively the personal capital of its partners, with no outside limited partners ². Turner and Weinberg met as undergraduates at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and went on to co-found Invite Media (acquired by Google in 2010 for approximately $81 million) and Flatiron Health (acquired by Roche in February 2018 for $1.9 billion) ³⁴⁵.

The founding partners were later joined by Gil Shklarski, former CTO of Flatiron Health who scaled the engineering team from inception to over 350 professionals ⁶, and Amit Avner, founder and CEO of Taykey (acquired by Innovid) and the first investor in fintech unicorn Plaid ². Zach Goldstein, previously an investor at Union Square Ventures, and Olivia Benjamin, formerly of Bain Capital Ventures and Goldman Sachs, round out the team as partners ⁷⁸.

The firm’s Fund II closed in 2024 at $40M-$70M in committed capital, all sourced from the partners’ personal wealth ⁹. Operator Partners writes checks of $250K-$2M across pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages, and does not lead rounds or take board seats ⁹¹⁰. As of January 2026, the firm has invested in 144 companies, with 10 unicorns and 19 acquisitions in its portfolio ¹¹.

Nat Turner also serves as CEO of Collectors, the parent company of PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) and PCGS, which he acquired in February 2021 for $853 million ¹². Zach Weinberg co-founded Curie.Bio in 2023, a biotech venture firm with $520 million focused on seed and Series A investments in therapeutics ¹³.

Stated Thesis

Operator Partners describes its thesis as “operators funding operators” ². The firm positions itself as providing capital from the partners’ own personal wealth alongside hands-on operational advisory, rather than board control ⁹. Amit Avner stated at launch: “We are operators funding operators. Our investment goes beyond money, we also bring with us our experience of building companies” ².

The firm publicly emphasizes speed and founder respect in their process: “We get to yes — or no — quickly. We understand what it’s like to run a company and will respect your time” ⁹. They also state: “If there’s not already a lead, we’ll help find one” ¹⁰.

Operator Partners describes their support model as on-demand: founders email, call, or text the partners individually or as a group, with some engaging weekly and others monthly or quarterly ¹⁴. Common areas of engagement include product evaluation, customer introductions, hiring support, culture building, and strategic guidance ¹⁴.

The firm highlights that it deliberately avoids leading rounds or taking board seats, differentiating itself from traditional venture capital firms ¹⁰. Zach Weinberg described this philosophy: “Really what you’re trying to do is find ways to help the founder in any way without distracting them” ¹⁵.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 144 verified investments as reported by Tracxn ¹¹, with portfolio details cross-referenced across Nat Turner’s personal portfolio page ¹⁶, Massinvestor ¹⁷, and Crunchbase ¹⁸:

Stage distribution: Operator Partners has made 40 investments at seed stage, 35 at Series A, and 5 at Series B, per Tracxn data ¹¹. This indicates a roughly even split between seed (50%) and Series A (44%), with occasional Series B follow-ons (6%). The firm’s check sizes range from $250K-$500K at pre-seed, $500K-$1M at seed, and $1M-$2M at Series A ⁹.

Sector breakdown: Based on Tracxn’s categorization of 144 investments: the portfolio skews heavily toward enterprise/B2B software (114 of 144 companies, or 79%, are classified as Enterprise B2B) ¹¹. Within that, key verticals include digital health/healthcare (prominent holdings include Spring Health, Headway, Carbon Health, Ro, Clover Health, Oscar Health, Apella, and numerous health-focused startups — at least 29 of Nat Turner’s 180+ personal investments are healthcare-related) ¹⁶, fintech (Plaid, Cedar, Ramp, Cardless, Casa, Chainalysis) ¹⁶, developer tools and infrastructure (Prefect, Flatfile, Immuta, Stytch, Composio) ¹⁶¹⁷, and cybersecurity (TRM Labs, Anagram Security, Aim Security) ¹⁷.

Geographic concentration: The firm is headquartered in New York and the majority of investments are US-based (66 of approximately 80 geo-tagged investments), with 5 investments in Israel ¹¹, reflecting Amit Avner’s Israeli background and network ².

Founder profile patterns: The firm’s name and thesis signal a strong preference for operator-founders — people who have built and run companies. The portfolio includes many technical founders and companies in complex regulated industries (healthcare, fintech) where operational experience matters.

Co-investor patterns: Operator Partners consistently invests as a non-lead co-investor alongside institutional leads. Notable co-investment relationships include rounds led by Tiger Global (Spring Health Series B) ¹⁹, HighlandX (Apella Series B) ²⁰, and Redpoint (Serval Series A) ⁹. The firm’s average round sizes — $6.26M at seed, $17.4M at Series A, $38.1M at Series B — reflect their role as a smaller participant in larger institutional rounds ¹¹.

Notable gaps vs. stated thesis: While the firm describes itself broadly as backing “tech companies,” the actual portfolio is heavily concentrated in enterprise software and healthcare, with relatively limited consumer exposure. The firm does not appear to invest meaningfully in hardware, deep tech, or climate, despite no stated exclusions.

Portfolio

This table represents a sample of verified investments. Operator Partners reports 144 total investments as of January 2026 ¹¹.

Note: Many investments predate the 2020 founding of Operator Partners and were made as personal angel investments by Nat Turner and Zach Weinberg. “Angel” stage indicates a personal angel investment where the specific round was not independently verified; years for angel investments are estimates based on Nat Turner’s portfolio page ¹⁶ and company founding dates.

In Their Own Words

“We are operators funding operators. Our investment goes beyond money, we also bring with us our experience of building companies.” — Amit Avner, General Partner, Calcalist Tech interview, 2020 ²

“We try our best to be, I don’t want to say valuation sensitive, I just think of it as like valuation reasonable.” — Zach Weinberg, General Partner, 20VC podcast ¹⁵

“I don’t want to have to teach the founder about their market size. I want him or her to teach me.” — Zach Weinberg, General Partner, 20VC podcast ¹⁵

“I’m on your team. I see absolutely no benefit from marking up some investment or using it to raise a future [fund].” — Zach Weinberg, General Partner, 20VC podcast ¹⁵

“The idea you start with will very likely not be the idea you end with, so just getting started is 99% of it.” — Nat Turner, General Partner, How Leaders Lead podcast ²²

“A perfect plan executed tomorrow is worse than a halfway decent plan executed violently today.” — Nat Turner, General Partner, How Leaders Lead podcast ²²

“The most dangerous thing as you become successful I’ve found is not realizing your ideas are stupid.” — Nat Turner, General Partner, How Leaders Lead podcast ²²

“When you hit a certain level of success, it’s hard to find other people to confide in.” — Zach Weinberg, General Partner, Panic with Friends podcast ²³

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. The firm’s website describes founder engagement as on-demand support where founders email, call, or text the partners individually or as a group ¹⁴, but no specific founder quotes about their experience working with Operator Partners could be verified through independent sources.

Sources