DeepWork Capital Research
Investment Thesis
DeepWork Capital is an early-stage venture firm based in Orlando, Florida, founded in 2015 and previously known as FAN Fund. Its tagline is "Capital. Guidance. Focus." The firm argues that innovation can happen anywhere and deliberately targets underserved venture markets such as Florida and the surrounding Southeast, where founders face less hype and have more room to build from the foundations up. The name comes from Cal Newport's idea of deep, uninterrupted work: the partners say the best founders spend their time understanding customers and markets rather than chasing press, big-name contacts and pitch competitions.
The firm describes itself as venture investors, technologists, founders and former CEOs who engage with each investment as a team, supporting founders before, during and after every investment. It invests through both proprietary and public committed capital funds, and runs a Florida Opportunity Fund program alongside its main vehicle.
Stage Focus
DeepWork targets Seed and Series A companies and says it is comfortable being the first institutional capital after friends, family and angels. Public portfolio-tracking profiles show a roughly even split between Seed and Series A deals. It has also led a $22M Series A-1 (FirmPilot), so it can take larger lead positions at the top of its range.
Check Size
Third-party profiles put typical initial checks at about $100K to $2M and total capital raised near $150M. Neither figure is stated on the firm's own site, so confidence is moderate to low.
Lead Tendency
Mixed. DeepWork led FirmPilot's oversubscribed $22M Series A-1 (reported February 2026), with Partner Ken Hall taking a board seat. In other rounds, such as Exowatt's $50M Series A extension and the TENEX.AI Series A, it participated alongside larger lead investors (MVP Ventures and 8090 Industries; Crosspoint Capital, a16z and Shield Capital).
Recent Activity
- FirmPilot (AI legal marketing): led the $22M Series A-1, total funding $27.25M; Ken Hall joined the board.
- Exowatt: participated in the $50M extension to its $70M Series A (November 2025).
- TENEX.AI: invested alongside the Florida Opportunity Fund; world HQ set in Sarasota (October 2025).
- Exits in the last year: Intecrowd (UST, April 2026), PikMyKid (CENTEGIX, May 2026), TotalSDS (Enhesa, October 2025).
- Follow-on rounds in portfolio: Worth AI $30M Series A, Urban SDK $65M growth round, Kalogon $5.75M.
The fund appears to be actively deploying.
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio page lists roughly 48 companies across life sciences, health technology, cybersecurity, enterprise software, fintech and insurtech, energy and robotics. Notable names include Exowatt (solar for data centers, backed by a16z), Tenex Security, Worth AI (from the Stax founders), Urban SDK, HCW Biologics (Nasdaq: HCWB), FirmPilot, Genascence and Grove BioPharma. Exits listed on the site include AbFero (Pharmacosmos), AireHealth, Imperative (Chronus), Intecrowd (UST Global), Intelligent Observation (HID Global), RepScrubs (THL Partners), PikMyKid (CENTEGIX), FattMerchant/Stax (Greater Sum Ventures), Quottly (Parchment), TAO Connect (Uplift Health Technologies) and TotalSDS (Enhesa).
Team
- Mitchel Laskey, Managing Partner
- Ben Patz, Managing Partner
- Kathy Chiu, Managing Partner
- Jackson Streeter, MD, Partner
- Ken Hall, Partner (joined 2021, former IBM corporate venture; sources deals, leads transactions, sits on boards)
- TJ Fleming, Vice President
- Tom McNamara, Vice President
- Kristopher Lancaster, Associate
Decision Process
Partnership model. The site stresses team-based engagement on each investment. No decision timeline or warm-intro requirement is published; the contact address for inbound is [email protected].
Founder Preferences
Entrepreneurs "with integrity and grit" who understand their customers and market deeply and keep a low profile while building. Many portfolio founders are repeat founders (for example Worth AI from the Stax team).
Geographic Focus
Primarily Florida and the surrounding Southeast, but the portfolio also includes companies in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Nashville, Palo Alto, Las Vegas, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas and other US cities, so geography is a preference rather than a restriction.
Gaps
The captioned read left one logo (Tompkins Robotics) unresolved because its caption was illegible. Check size and fund size come from third-party profiles. Several inner site pages were unreadable via the standard page reader, so the team page and news were read through the captioned reader.