Boardroom Venture Partners Research
Investment Thesis
Boardroom Venture Partners (BVP) is not a traditional capital-deploying venture fund. Founded in 2018 and based in Palo Alto, California, BVP describes itself as "a new kind of venture firm" whose core product is operating talent rather than dollars: "We invest our operators — CEOs, CROs, CTOs, and CISOs — in the companies where we can add the most value." The firm is built around a bench of roughly fifteen senior operators and post-exit founders who take on interim executive, fractional-CXO, board-member, and advisor roles inside portfolio and partner companies. BVP explicitly positions itself as complementary to, rather than competitive with, traditional venture and private-equity investors: "We view venture investors as partners, not competitors. BVP complements the strategic guidance GPs provide with embedded operator capacity that most investment teams cannot offer in-house." The firm states plainly that it is "not here to raise capital" from VCs, but instead to identify which portfolio companies need senior operating help and to deploy operators when the moment calls for it.
Sector Focus
BVP does not publish a sector mandate in the way a traditional fund would. Its work is organized around functional need rather than vertical focus — AI strategy and deployment, go-to-market scaling, fundraising preparation, and executive/board building — and it engages with companies across the venture and private-equity ecosystem broadly. The one confirmed engagement identified during research, Horizon (usehorizon.ai), is an AI-native enterprise organizational-discovery platform, suggesting a natural affinity for AI-forward enterprise software companies, but this should not be read as an exclusive focus.
Stage Focus & Check Size
Not disclosed. BVP's engagement model is structured around embedding operators — sometimes compensated with equity or success-based fees — rather than writing traditional priced checks, so conventional stage and check-size fields do not map cleanly onto its model. No specific stage or dollar-range language appears on the site or in available secondary sources.
Lead Tendency
Not applicable in the traditional sense. BVP does not lead priced rounds; its primary unit of investment is operator time and board/advisory involvement, occasionally paired with equity or success-based compensation.
Recent Activity
The clearest public engagement is with Horizon (usehorizon.ai), an AI-driven organizational-discovery startup led by CEO Nicolas Scopesi. General Partner Frank Rodorigo and Venture Partner David Norris are reported (via LinkedIn) to be partnering with Horizon's founding team on go-to-market strategy, partnership development, and building out the company's advisory board. Fund status and cadence of new engagements could not be determined from public sources.
Portfolio Highlights
BVP does not publish a portfolio page or client list. Horizon (usehorizon.ai) is the only specific engagement identified with confidence during this research pass; the firm's own site references "23 portfolio companies (and growing)" and "30+ AI deployments" over the last two years without naming them.
Team
BVP's team consists of two General Partners and nine listed Venture Partners, all functioning as embedded operators/advisors:
- David Norris — General Partner; Interim CEO, Fractional CXO, Board Member, Advisor
- Frank Rodorigo — General Partner; Interim CEO, Fractional CGO, Board Member, Advisor
- Marc England — Venture Partner; Executive Recruiting, Advisory Boards, Advisor
- Dr. Andy Wagner — Venture Partner; Fractional CMO, Fractional CXO, Board Member, Advisor
- Kelly Markey — Venture Partner; Fractional CISO, Advisor
- Tony Karrer — Venture Partner; Fractional CTO, Advisor
- Christopher Ciano — Venture Partner; Board Member, Strategic Advisor
- Marc Feder — Venture Partner; Fractional CMO, Advisor
- Mayrav Saar — Venture Partner; Fractional CMO, Brand-Aligned Content, Advisor
- Chris Tarr — Venture Partner; Board Member, Advisor
- Giles Goodwin — Venture Partner; Interim CEO, Fractional CTO, Board Member, Advisor
- Patty Riskind — Venture Partner; Fractional CXO, Board Member, Advisor
No individual emails or full biographies were published on the team page; LinkedIn profiles are listed for each member.
Decision Process
Not explicitly disclosed. Given the two-GP structure with a broader Venture Partner bench, engagements likely involve GP sign-off with input from the relevant functional Venture Partner, but this is inferred rather than confirmed.
Founder Preferences
BVP's marketing emphasizes "people we like, on projects we enjoy," a peer-to-peer partnership model, and situations where embedded operating leadership — not just advice — can materially change outcomes. It targets leadership teams navigating inflection points: AI adoption, go-to-market scaling, fundraising, and leadership/board transitions.
Geographic Focus
Not explicitly disclosed. The firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, consistent with a Silicon Valley-centric network, though its team includes members based more broadly (e.g., Grand Rapids, MI), suggesting a nationally distributed operator bench rather than a strictly regional focus.