Boris Wertz

Background

Boris Wertz is the Founder and General Partner of Version One Ventures, a Vancouver-based early-stage venture capital firm he founded in July 2012 ¹. Born in Germany, Wertz holds a PhD in Logistics and an MBA from WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management in Koblenz, Germany ².

Wertz began his entrepreneurial career in 1999, co-founding JustBooks, an online marketplace for used and out-of-print books in Germany ³. In 2001, during the dot-com crash, JustBooks merged with Victoria, BC-based AbeBooks, where Wertz became Chief Operating Officer and led a team of 60 people ³⁴. In August 2008, AbeBooks was acquired by Amazon for an estimated $90-$120 million ⁵.

After the Amazon acquisition, Wertz transitioned to angel investing, making approximately 30 to 35 investments including early bets on companies like Wattpad, Indochino, Unbounce, Indiegogo, and Edmodo ⁶³. Several of these yielded exits to companies including Google, Twitter, Salesforce, and Groupon ¹. In 2012, he formalized this activity by launching Version One Ventures with an initial $15 million fund ¹.

In April 2014, Wertz joined Andreessen Horowitz as a Board Partner, a part-time role in which he scouts deals and sits on boards of select startups ⁷. He also serves as a mentor at the Creative Destruction Lab in Toronto and Vancouver, and sits on the boards of Science World and Canada Learning Code ². In 2005, he received the Pacific Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award ².

Version One has grown significantly since its founding. Fund I closed at $18.7 million in 2012, Fund II at $35 million in 2014, Fund III at approximately $45 million (CAD $57 million) in 2018, Fund IV at $70 million in 2021, and Opportunities Fund II at $30 million in 2021 ⁶⁸⁹. Two additional funds were closed in June 2025, raised in just six weeks ¹⁰. The firm now manages over $250 million in assets ⁹. Wertz runs the firm alongside General Partner Angela Tran, who is based in Silicon Valley ⁹.

Stated Thesis

Version One publicly describes its mission as backing “mission-driven founders who are early in new areas” ¹¹. Wertz has stated that if a category already has branded terminology and a line of VCs waiting, he is probably too late ¹¹.

The firm’s current stated focus areas are crypto/web3, AI, climate/energy, and India ¹¹¹⁰. Wertz has emphasized investing “at the edges, not in the mainstream” and being comfortable “betting on founders without (obvious) pedigree” ¹¹.

On fund construction, Wertz has stated that the firm continues to focus on pre-seed and seed stage opportunities, as those are “the stages where we can add the most value” ⁹. Investment check sizes range from $100,000 to $1.3 million, with a target of approximately $500,000 ¹².

Wertz has described his approach to firm size as deliberate: to do early-stage mentorship well and create outsized returns, “you need to be a small team” ⁴.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 43 verified current portfolio companies and 22 verified exits (65 total verified investments), the following patterns emerge.

Sector distribution: Crypto/Web3 represents the largest concentration, with at least 12 of 65 verified investments (18%) including Coinbase, Dapper Labs, Uniswap, Defined, Dinari, Ether.Fi, Filebase, Flow, Nexus Mutual, Arweave, Celo, and SuperRare. SaaS/enterprise software accounts for at least 11 of 65 (17%), including Jobber, Outreach, Top Hat, Zenput, Unbounce, and Inflection.io. Climate/energy accounts for at least 7 of 65 (11%), including Bedrock Materials, Moment Energy, Bolt.Earth, NCX, Patch, EnPowered, and Booster Fuels. Marketplaces represent at least 6 of 65 (9%), including Headout, Indiegogo, VarageSale, Indochino, and AngelList. Healthcare/biotech accounts for at least 5 of 65 (8%), including NiaHealth, Gencove, Qvin, Figure 1, and Scanwell. Robotics represents at least 3 of 65 (5%) with Pickle Robot, TRIC Robotics, and Optimotive. The remaining investments span consumer internet, edtech, fintech, and aerospace.

Stage distribution: The firm invests predominantly at seed stage. According to Tracxn data, Version One has made 55 investments at seed stage (average round size $2.88M), 10 at Series A ($9.12M average), and 6 at Series B ($13.2M average) ¹³. The Opportunities Fund is used for follow-on investments in breakout portfolio companies including Ada, Dapper Labs, Headout, Jobber, and Shippo ⁹.

Geographic distribution: The portfolio skews heavily toward the United States (43 of investments) and Canada (22 of investments) according to Tracxn ¹³. Notable Canadian portfolio companies include Jobber (Edmonton), Ada (Toronto), Dapper Labs (Vancouver), Wattpad (Toronto), and NiaHealth. The firm has recently expanded into India, backing emerging fund managers and companies like Bolt.Earth and ApniBus ¹⁰¹⁴.

Founder profile patterns: Wertz has emphasized that he evaluates founders based on three criteria: ability to communicate a compelling vision, demonstrated passion for the problem (willingness to work on it even without funding), and speed of learning ¹⁵⁴. He has stated that team quality accounts for “98 per cent” of early-stage investing decisions ⁶.

Co-investor patterns: Version One frequently co-invests with other early-stage funds including Union Square Ventures (Wattpad, Coinbase ecosystem), Andreessen Horowitz (Uniswap), Bessemer Venture Partners (Ada), and Uncork Capital (Shippo). Wertz’s board partner role at a16z facilitates deal flow overlap with that firm.

Notable gap: Despite claiming to invest in AI, the 2025 year in review noted that 8 of 9 new investments had hardware components, suggesting a meaningful shift toward deep tech and hardware that is not prominently featured in the firm’s stated thesis ¹⁰.

Emerging GP investing: Wertz has backed 30+ emerging fund managers over the past 12 years, typically investing 1% of fund size ($100K-$300K) in funds below $20M, with focus on crypto, climate, deep tech, and India ¹⁴.

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 41 of 113 known portfolio companies (36%), based on Tracxn’s count of Version One’s total investments ¹³. Many early angel investments predate formal fund tracking.

In Their Own Words

On his investment philosophy, Wertz has written: “The most important playbook in early-stage investing is to not follow a playbook. Stay curious, embrace randomness, hang out at the edges, focus on founders” ¹¹.

On the importance of founders, from a Techcouver interview in 2022: “99% of the magic is created by founders and their teams” and “your impact on the success of a business is limited” ²⁰.

On the investor’s role, from the same interview: “An investor’s biggest impact comes when he or she believes in a team when no one else does. Be the first cheque, lead a round, help with a bridge” ²⁰.

On risk tolerance, from a Globe and Mail profile in 2015: “If the fail rate of our companies is not high enough, it’s probably because we’re not taking enough risks” ⁶.

On venture outcomes: “In a venture portfolio, one third will die, a third will roughly pay back what you invested, and a third will do well” ⁶.

On evaluating founders, from a Creative Destruction Lab interview: “I’m fascinated by the formative years – the first two or three years – when the entrepreneur is trying to figure out product market fit” ¹⁵.

On founder evaluation criteria, from the Mercury blog: “What really matters is how quickly founders can learn. Are they real learning machines?” ⁴.

On conviction versus valuation, from the Neon Fund podcast in 2025: “You should never pass on a company where you have incredible conviction because of valuation in the same way that you should never do a deal just because the valuation feels really cheap” ¹⁴.

On marketplace investing, from a Sharetribe interview: “We only invest in businesses that we believe can become really big. In the case of marketplaces, this means that we need to see the potential for $1B in Gross Merchandise Volume” ⁵.

On the Coinbase IPO, from the Globe and Mail in 2021: “Every single investor lives for IPOs in their portfolio and it happens rarely, so it’s a big day” ¹⁹.

What Founders Say

Carl Mercier, CEO of VarageSale (a Version One portfolio company that received investment in 2013), stated that Wertz’s backing carried significant weight with other investors. According to a Globe and Mail profile, Mercier said: “I kept hearing ‘Oh great, Boris is investing.’ Many investors say, ‘If Boris believes in you, it must be something special’” ⁶.

Albert Wenger, a partner at Union Square Ventures and co-investor in Wattpad, described Wertz’s deal sourcing ability in the same Globe and Mail article: “Any time Boris says, ‘You should look at this thing,’ we always do. It’s guaranteed to be interesting” ⁶.

Note: Albert Wenger is a co-investor rather than a portfolio founder. No additional independently sourced founder testimonials were found beyond the Mercier quote. The firm’s website does not feature a dedicated testimonials section.

Sources