Las Olas Venture Capital | Investment Thesis & Preferences

01Investment Thesis

We back founders building AI and software applications that modernize outdated business workflows, driving ROI and efficiency, and amplify their impact through hands-on support.

Exclusion Criteria

Not a fit for pure consumer apps, hardware-only plays, or later-stage growth rounds outside the seed/pre-seed band.

02Investment Team

DH

Dean Hatton

Founding Partner

MV

Mark Volchek

Founding Partner

NV

Nate Vasel

General Partner

SL

Scotty Lefkowitz

Principal

EP

Elvia Perez

Associate

AS

Andrew Sih

CFO

03F4 Research Brief

Las Olas Venture Capital Research

Investment Thesis

Las Olas Venture Capital (LOVC) is a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based early-stage venture firm founded by operators who describe themselves as "founders-turned investors." The firm backs founders building AI and software applications that modernize outdated business workflows in traditionally underserved, manual industries, with the explicit goal of driving measurable ROI and operating efficiency for end customers. LOVC pairs capital with hands-on operational support, drawing on the founding team's own experience building and scaling B2B software companies. The firm's public positioning statement is "Founders-Turned Investors Backing the Next Generation of Enterprise Software," and its stated industry focus is "SaaS + Vertical AI."

Stage Focus

LOVC's website lists Seed as its primary stage preference, and the firm is consistently the first institutional check into companies it backs (OneRail's 2020 seed, BusRight's 2023 seed+, City Detect's 2024 seed, VetVerifi's 2025 seed). The firm also follows on aggressively into later rounds of its winners, participating in City Detect's 2026 Series A and BusRight's 2026 $30M Series B. Earlier fund materials (Fund II, 2022) described a somewhat larger initial check band of $3M-$5M leads with up to $2M in reserve, suggesting some flexibility beyond pure seed as fund size has grown across three vehicles.

Check Size

The firm's own site states an average investment of $1.5M-$3M, and third-party trackers (openvc.app) corroborate that LOVC "typically leads rounds with $1.5M-$3M checks," taking a high-conviction, hands-on approach from early traction through Series A. Historical fund materials mention up to $5M for larger seed leads with reserve capital for follow-ons.

Lead Tendency

LOVC consistently leads. It was the first institutional investor in OneRail (2020 seed) and has led or co-led seed rounds in BusRight, City Detect, and VetVerifi, continuing to participate in their subsequent growth rounds as a proactive existing investor.

Recent Activity

LOVC is actively deploying, with public blog posts as recently as March 2026 announcing follow-on investments in City Detect ($13M Series A) and BusRight ($30M Series B), and highlighting a strategic partnership between portfolio company OneRail and FedEx (SameDay Local). The firm is reported by third parties to be deploying its third fund (Fund III) into B2B SaaS and vertical AI companies as of mid-2026, following a $28.5M Fund I and a $50M Fund II (closed 2022, bringing total AUM to roughly $100M at that time). The firm invests roughly 4-6 times per year per its own site.

Portfolio Highlights

LOVC's active portfolio spans roughly 20 companies, including BusRight (K-12 student transportation software, ~1M users across 36 states), OneRail (AI-native last-mile logistics orchestration, now partnered with FedEx), City Detect (computer-vision platform detecting urban blight for municipalities including Dallas, Cleveland, Stockton, and Miami-Dade County), AvoMD (clinical decision support), Leasecake (lease and compliance management for multi-location retail), LendingFront (SMB lending infrastructure), Protiv (construction workforce pay), Paccurate (shipping/packing optimization), Drivepoint and Mosaic (FP&A tooling), and Ecomap (technology resource discovery for local governments). The firm's notable exit is IOpipe, a serverless monitoring startup it backed that was acquired by New Relic in November 2019. Former portfolio companies also include CarePredict, OpenReel, Preteckt, Medxoom, Configure-8, Cypress, Otto, and Plum.

Team

Dean Hatton, Founding Partner — co-founded the firm; long-standing operating and investing partnership at LOVC.
Mark Volchek, Founding Partner — co-founded the firm alongside Hatton; frequently cited in LOVC fund announcements (Fund II press coverage).
Nate Vasel, General Partner — leads sourcing and portfolio support; also cited in Fund II coverage.
Scotty Lefkowitz, Principal — investment team member.
Elvia Perez, Associate — investment team member.
Andrew Sih, CFO — leads finance and fund operations.

Decision Process

LOVC describes its leadership as "a long-standing partnership" combining operating backgrounds and market experience across stages, consistent with a partnership-style decision process rather than a solo-GP or large investment-committee structure.

Founder Preferences

LOVC favors operator-led teams attacking large, workflow-heavy, historically underserved industries with AI and modern software — examples include K-12 transportation, municipal government operations, last-mile logistics, construction workforce management, and healthcare clinical workflows. The firm emphasizes founders who can show tangible ROI and efficiency gains for end customers, not just software feature velocity.

Geographic Focus

LOVC is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and is a prominent fixture in the South Florida startup ecosystem, but its portfolio is deployed broadly across the United States (BusRight's customers span 36 states; City Detect serves municipalities from Dallas to Cleveland to Miami-Dade). There is no publicly stated geographic restriction limiting investments to Florida or the Southeast.

04Selected Portfolio