upfront-ventures
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The LA Venture Firm That Wants the First Check - and the Long Relationship
Upfront Ventures built its identity around an unfashionable venture-capital idea: geography can be an edge. Three decades in, its LA roots now connect seed checks, growth capital and one of tech's most closely watched rooms.
Jan-Felix Schneider
Jan-Felix Schneider is the co-founder and CEO of Arlo, a New York health insurance company rebuilding coverage for small and mid-sized businesses from the ground up. A former Palantir deployment strategist and McKinsey consultant who grew up in Germany, he pairs a Columbia data science background with a plain conviction that people should not go broke while insured. Under his lead, Arlo underwrites its own level-funded plans, supports members directly, and builds its own technology - scaling to tens of thousands of covered lives and hundreds of employer groups, reaching profitability, and raising a $4M seed in 2025.
Nico Simko
Nico Simko is the co-founder and CEO of Clair, a New York fintech that lets hourly workers tap their earned wages the moment a shift ends, with no interest and no mandatory fees. A former Swiss national-team fencer who captained the U17 squad before fencing at Harvard, he studied economics, worked an hourly campus job, then ran M&A due diligence on payments fintechs at J.P. Morgan. He founded Clair in 2019 after becoming obsessed with the idea that any employer should be able to pay people instantly. Clair embeds inside HR and payroll platforms and earns most of its money from debit-card interchange rather than worker fees. The company has raised hundreds of millions in equity and debt, including a $23.2M Series B in 2025 led by Upfront Ventures with Thrive Capital. Simko is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
Kara Nortman
Kara Nortman is a Princeton and Stanford MBA-educated venture capitalist who spent eight years at Upfront Ventures before pivoting to become the defining force in women's sports investment. She co-founded Angel City FC — the NWSL team that became the world's most valuable women's sports franchise at $250 million — and then launched Monarch Collective, the world's largest women's sports investment fund at $250 million. She was also in the room at IAC's Hatch Labs when a restaurant-reservation app called Cardify was reborn as Tinder.
Mark Suster
Mark Suster is a Managing Partner at Upfront Ventures, the largest early-stage VC firm in Southern California, and the author of the influential blog Both Sides of the Table. A serial entrepreneur who built and sold two companies before switching to investing, Suster brings a rare founder's perspective to venture capital. Known for coining 'fauxmentum,' championing the LA tech ecosystem, and advocating openly about ADHD, he manages hundreds of millions in capital while hosting the Upfront Summit — one of America's premier LP and VC conferences.