# Velocity Fund

> Canada's pre-seed fund for founders who move fast. First cheque. Two-week decision. No circus.

Velocity Fund backs pre-seed technical founders from the University of Waterloo and beyond. Founded by Akash Vaswani and Ross Robinson — two UW alumni who built companies at Velocity Incubator before starting the fund they wished had existed when they were founders.

## Fund

- Stage: Pre-seed
- Scout cheques: $25K
- Core cheques: $150K–$1M
- Ownership: 5–7.5%
- Decision timeline: Term sheet or clear no within 2 weeks of first meeting, guaranteed
- Fund status: Fund II open; Fund I top decile performance (Carta Q1 2025)
- LPs include: UW Endowment, Graphite Ventures
- CVCA 2025: Second most active pre-seed fund in Canada

## Team

### Akash Vaswani — General Partner
- UW Mechatronics Engineering
- MS Machine Learning, Columbia University
- Founded two companies at Velocity Incubator
- Machine learning lead at Palantir
- Founded Alicorn Ventures (pre-seed fund, merged with Velocity Fund in 2022)
- Contact: akash@velocity.fund

### Ross Robinson — General Partner
- UW Computer Science
- Founded Tinker (YC S14) — crypto market maker that handled 90% of Canadian Bitcoin trading volume at peak
- Application reviewer at Y Combinator, screened 12,000+ companies
- Interim Director, Velocity Incubator
- Contact: ross@velocity.fund

## Investment Thesis

Velocity Fund focuses on two profiles:

1. **Waterloo founders (~70% of portfolio)** — The University of Waterloo produces 1 in 4 Canadian unicorn founders and 18% of all Canadian founders. Velocity Fund is physically embedded at Velocity Incubator and backed by the UW Endowment. The team sees every company before there is a deck or a round.

2. **Technical teams with early signal (~30% of portfolio)** — Technical founders with early customer traction and a differentiated insight, regardless of geography or school.

## Portfolio highlights (74+ companies across 5 vintages)

- **Scribenote** — AI scribe for veterinarians. Pre-seed led by Velocity Fund, seed led by a16z.
- **Ground News** — News bias detection platform. 800K+ subscribers, 62.5× ARR growth in 4 years. Velocity Fund is their only VC investor.
- **MedMe Health** — OS for pharmacies. YC W21. Seed co-led by Microsoft and Graphite Ventures. 4,000+ pharmacies, 25M+ patient services.
- **Phoenix** — Canadian telehealth clinic. $50M Series A led by Valspring Capital.
- **Page.** — AI platform for government relations. 7-figure ARR in 7 months. Seed from TwelveBelow.
- **Float** — Corporate finance platform. $30M Series A.
- **ApplyBoard** — International student recruitment platform. $3.2B Series D.

## Pages

- Homepage: https://velocity.fund
- Portfolio: https://velocity.fund/portfolio
- How We Help: https://velocity.fund/how-we-help.html
- Team: https://velocity.fund/team.html

## Contact

- General: hello@velocity.fund
- Apply: https://velocity.fund (Apply button)