Version One Ventures

About

Version One Ventures is a Vancouver-based early-stage venture capital firm founded by Boris Wertz in July 2012 ¹. The firm operates with a small team — Wertz as Founder and General Partner, Angela Tran as General Partner (promoted to GP in September 2018) ², and Josh Nussbaum who joined as Venture Partner in February 2025 ³. Angela Tran is based in the San Francisco Bay Area while Wertz operates from Vancouver ⁴.

Before founding Version One, Wertz co-founded JustBooks in 1999, an online marketplace for used and rare books, which was sold to Canadian company AbeBooks in 2001 ⁵. Wertz served as COO of AbeBooks until its acquisition by Amazon ⁵. He subsequently made over 35 angel investments, with six exits including acquisitions by Google, Twitter, Salesforce, and Groupon ¹. In 2014, Wertz also took on a part-time Board Partner role at Andreessen Horowitz ⁶.

Angela Tran holds a PhD in Operations Research and Financial Engineering from the University of Toronto ⁷. She co-founded Insight Data Science, a Y Combinator-backed program placing STEM PhDs as data scientists at companies like Apple and Google ⁷. She joined Version One and developed the firm’s healthcare and biotech investment thesis before being promoted to General Partner ².

The firm has raised a total of approximately $250 million across six funds ⁸. Fund I launched in 2012 at $15 million ¹. Fund II closed at $35 million in 2014 with Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund and BDC Capital as anchor LPs ⁹. Fund III raised $45 million, followed by Opportunities Fund I at approximately $20 million in 2020 ⁴. Fund IV ($70 million) and Opportunities Fund II ($30 million) closed in June 2021, raising the $100 million in six weeks ⁴. Two additional new funds closed in June 2025 ¹⁰. Notable LPs include Northleaf Capital Partners, HarbourVest Partners, Kensington Capital Partners, Invesco, RBC, and Markus Frind’s family office (founder of Plenty of Fish), along with approximately ten Version One portfolio company entrepreneurs ⁹.

As of late 2025, Version One has invested in over 113 companies, with 6 unicorns, 1 IPO (Coinbase), and 39 acquisitions ¹¹. The firm describes itself as a “craft business” rather than a platform firm, maintaining a small team and a portfolio of roughly 30 companies per fund ¹².

Stated Thesis

Version One publicly describes its mission as backing “mission-driven founders who are early in new areas” ¹³. The firm states it invests at pre-seed and seed stages, where it believes it can “add the most value” ⁴.

Boris Wertz has said the firm looks for founders with “bold, insane, off-the-wall ideas” and invests “often before their solution is obvious, or their category is clear” ¹³. He has described his approach as investing “in non-obvious opportunities in markets that are early on their S-curve,” noting that “once everyone talks about the sharing economy, you’ve probably missed Airbnb” ⁸.

The firm’s stated investment focus has evolved over time: vertical SaaS and marketplaces (2012), healthcare and biotech (2014), crypto and Web3 (2016), robotics (2019), climate and energy (2020), and VR/AR (2022) ⁸. As of 2025, the firm identifies three primary focus areas: AI, deep tech, and India-focused opportunities ¹⁰.

Angela Tran has stated that Version One looks for founders who “won’t stop at anything to solve the problem that they’ve experienced firsthand” ¹⁴. She has noted that at the earliest stages, “when there are no metrics to invest in, we really are focused on thinking about what the future looks like with this company” ¹⁴.

The firm’s initial check size was $250,000 to $500,000 ¹, and it continues to target initial investments in that range ⁷.

Inferred Thesis

The following analysis is based on 46 verified current and exited portfolio companies identified through the firm’s portfolio page and public announcements.

Sector Distribution:

Based on 46 verified investments: - Crypto/Web3/DeFi: 10 of 46 (22%) — Coinbase, Uniswap, Dapper Labs, Ether.Fi, Defined, Dinari, Flow, Tenderly, Celo, Nexus Mutual - SaaS/Enterprise Software: 9 of 46 (20%) — Jobber, Clio, Ada, Outreach, Top Hat, Unbounce, Groupthink, Inflection.io, Mattermark - Climate/Energy/Hardware: 6 of 46 (13%) — Moment Energy, Patch, NCX, Booster Fuels, Bedrock Materials, Shellworks - Robotics/Aerospace/Automotive: 5 of 46 (11%) — Pickle Robot, TRIC Robotics, Arctus Aerospace, Optimotive, Pluto Mobility - Marketplaces/Consumer: 6 of 46 (13%) — Wattpad, Indiegogo, Headout, AngelList, Tindie, VarageSale - Healthcare/Bio: 4 of 46 (9%) — Gencove, Nia Health, Scanwell, Calvis - Fintech: 3 of 46 (7%) — Loon Finance, Trim, Demandstar - Other: 3 of 46 (7%) — Kobalt, Cap Hill Brands, Preemadonna

Stage Distribution:

The firm’s investments are predominantly at pre-seed and seed, consistent with their stated thesis. The Opportunities Funds (Funds I and II) provide follow-on capital into breakout portfolio companies like Ada, Dapper Labs, Headout, Jobber, and Shippo ⁴.

Geographic Patterns:

The portfolio shows strong representation from Canada (Vancouver and Toronto — Clio, Jobber, Top Hat, Unbounce, Wattpad, Ada, Moment Energy, Dapper Labs) and the US (San Francisco and Seattle — Shippo, Outreach, Coinbase). The firm has expanded into India-based investments including Pluto Mobility (Delhi) ¹⁵ and Bolt.Earth ¹⁶, and ApniBus. This aligns with Wertz’s stated thesis that India could be “China from two decades ago” ¹².

Notable Pattern — Hardware Shift:

The 2025 year in review noted that 8 of 9 new investments in 2025 had a hardware component ¹⁰, a significant shift for a firm historically focused on software and marketplaces. This reflects the expanding deep tech and climate thesis.

Co-investor Patterns:

Bessemer Venture Partners appears as a frequent co-investor, participating alongside Version One in both Ada (seed) ¹⁷ and Clio (Series C) ¹⁸. USV co-invested in Bolt.Earth ¹⁶. The Opportunities Fund I follow-on investments suggest the firm doubles down on its winners rather than spreading follow-on capital broadly ⁴.

Founder Profile:

Wertz has stated a preference for first-time entrepreneurs, saying “We’re happy to be backing first-time entrepreneurs that nobody else has ever backed” ⁴. He evaluates founders on raw talent, genuine passion (asking “Would they do this if they could never raise anything significant for it?”), and storytelling ability ⁵.

Portfolio

Note: This table represents approximately 46 of 113+ known investments (~41%). Years marked with ~ are based on founding year or estimated from fund vintage; specific investment dates could not be independently verified for all entries. Many early angel investments and smaller positions are not reflected here.

In Their Own Words

Boris Wertz on early-stage investing:

“I’m fascinated by the formative years — the first two or three years — when the entrepreneur is trying to figure out product market fit.” — Boris Wertz, Creative Destruction Lab blog ⁵

“An investor’s biggest impact comes when he or she believes in a team when no one else does.” — Boris Wertz, Techcouver, June 2022 ⁸

“99% of the magic is created by founders and their teams.” — Boris Wertz, Techcouver, June 2022 ⁸

“Founders need a true and long-term partner. Not just a cheerleader.” — Boris Wertz, Techcouver, June 2022 ⁸

“It feels like if you had been part of the early internet. The only thing you need to get right at the time is the investment thesis.” — Boris Wertz on crypto investing in 2016, Mercury blog ¹²

“What really matters is how quickly founders can learn. Are they real learning machines?” — Boris Wertz, Mercury blog ¹²

“For every single investment we make, we have a thesis it can become a fund maker. Obviously, most of the time it doesn’t happen but when it does, it’s a beauty.” — Boris Wertz ⁸

“Books have always been a passion of mine and it feels great to be back in the space — looking forward to seeing Wattpad having the same disruptive effect on reading and creating books than AbeBooks had for finding and buying hard-to-find books.” — Boris Wertz, Version One blog, 2011 ¹⁹

“At Version One, we are big believers in the vertical SaaS opportunity. Small to mid-sized businesses have long been underusing technology.” — Boris Wertz, on the Clio investment, 2014 ¹⁸

“Pluto Mobility is taking a fundamentally different approach to last-mile delivery by designing vehicles specifically for throughput and operational reliability.” — Boris Wertz, on the Pluto investment, 2026 ¹⁵

Angela Tran on investing:

“We love backing mission driven founders, so people who won’t stop at anything to solve the problem that they’ve experienced firsthand.” — Angela Tran, CIBC Innovation Banking podcast ¹⁴

“When there are no metrics to invest in, we really are focused on thinking about what the future looks like with this company.” — Angela Tran, CIBC Innovation Banking podcast ¹⁴

“The era of cheap money is over, but I think there’s still access to money in general…there’s just a higher bar that needs to be cleared.” — Angela Tran, CIBC Innovation Banking podcast ¹⁴

Boris Wertz on Angela Tran’s promotion to GP:

“A productive partnership is an incredibly powerful thing to see in action: great partners push and challenge each other every day and they turn diverse perspectives into constructive discussions.” — Boris Wertz, Version One blog, September 2018 ²

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. The firm’s website and blog posts do not feature structured founder testimonial sections. TechCrunch reporters covering the firm’s Fund IV announcement in 2021 noted they were “struck by how connected the founders seem to the firm and both Wertz and Tran — even much later in the startups’ maturation” ⁴, but this is a journalist observation rather than a direct founder quote.

Sources