TipTopVC

Big news: I’m thrilled to officially unveil @TipTopVC — a new pre-seed/seed stage, operator-led venture firm backing the next-gen of Vertical AI founders. After an amazing 8+ year run as founding head of marketing and CMO at Greenlight Guru — from $0 to tens of millions in ARR, creating the medtech QMS category, and raising $120M+ — I knew I had two paths: a) start another software company b) start a venture fund built the way I wish VC worked when I was a founder For nearly 13 years, it’s been a personal goal to build a top-tier VC firm that the best founders want to work with. But the marketer in me always said: “the world doesn’t need another undifferentiated B2B SaaS fund.” So I unplugged. Got a cabin in the Rockies with my then girlfriend, and now wife. And after some much-needed clarity, I had four big realizations: 1. I didn’t have one problem I wanted to solve for 10-15 years—but I had unique experience operating in vertical markets that founders could lean on 2. The future of software (and AI) is vertical 3. My experience gave me a unique right to win with the top founders 4. The best VC firms of the next decade would operate like AI-native startups themselves—brand-led, data-driven, community-built That’s when TipTop Ventures was born. The Vertical SaaS+ thesis I shared nearly 2 years ago unexpectedly went viral. That post pulled me forward. Fast forward to today—and after 30+ vertical SaaS+ angel deals, over a dozen LP checks written, and 9 TipTop investments closed—I’m proud to announce we’re live. While I’m just now announcing the firm, here’s what we’ve quietly built so far: - 9 investments across legacy and underserved industries - 3 companies marked up out of 6 investments made in 2024 - Raving founder feedback on our support-per-dollar invested - 30+ founding LPs from the likes of ServiceTitan, Procore, Mindbody, Greenlight Guru and more It hasn’t been easy going zero-to-one in this market—but the momentum is real. In fact, based on Carta’s latest fund data, if we were a 2023 vintage (we’re 2024), we’d already be tracking top decile. And yes, TipTop is led by a solo-GP, but not solo-built. I’d like to express my deep gratitude for all the support from these early believers: Thank you to my amazing wife Mari Tippmann for your unwavering support since day-minus-one Thank you to our LPs for your early belief and trust–it’s taken very seriously Thank you to Bill Loss for being a rock as founding advisor and LPAC member Thank you to Ershad Jamil for joining me as a Venture Partner And most of all — thank you to our founders. You chose us when we didn’t even have a website (or a fund in some cases). I’ll never forget that. We believe AI is the biggest platform shift since the internet. We believe the future of AI is vertical. And we believe the best founders aren’t just building tools — they’re reinventing industries. If you’re one of those founders: we’re writing $150k–400K checks at pre-seed/seed. Let’s build together. Join us on the journey to the TipTop.

Today, we’re excited to announce that @OureonTech is emerging from stealth following a $3.5M pre-seed round led by GTMfund, with participation from Boost VC, BVVC, Ensemble VC, Flyover Capital, JHH VC, and Tiptop VC, to build the future of advanced airspace interoperability.
 Each year, there are more than 100 million aircraft flights worldwide, and over the next decade, more than 800 million additional drone flights will enter global airspace. Yet these systems still operate in isolation, unable to communicate, predict, or deconflict in real time.
 Oureon Technologies is building the real-time communication layer that connects them, enabling manned and unmanned aircraft to communicate and coordinate safely, instantly, and autonomously. From airports to city airspaces, and beyond, our platform powers predictive, real-time, intelligent communication and deconfliction across every vehicle in the sky.
 If you want to work on something that matters, with a great group of people, we’re hiring at our HQ in Austin, Texas.