Omni Ventures Research
Investment Thesis
Omni Ventures is a first-check venture capital firm dedicated entirely to Manufacturing Tech, framing its mandate as "Making the Physical World Machine-Readable." The firm's core belief is that humans have historically bridged disconnected engineering systems, factories, supply chains, and infrastructure through experience and intuition, while intelligent machines cannot. Omni invests in the technologies building the connected, data-rich foundation that AI requires to operate in the physical world. The firm views manufacturing as the next great frontier for software transformation, following the pattern of digitization that has already reshaped nearly every other major sector of the economy, and argues that decades of manufacturing data trapped in machines, factory floors, tribal knowledge, spreadsheets, and legacy on-prem systems is now finally accessible to AI.
Sector Focus
Omni's stated verticals are Enterprise Manufacturing Tech across five categories: Digital Engineering, Manufacturing, Robotics, Supply Chain, and Future of Work. Portfolio companies span AI-guided production-line robotics, CAD design-checking and co-pilot tools, industrial IoT logistics tracking, GPU-accelerated engineering computation, factory-data intelligence platforms, and vertical operating systems for machine shops.
Stage Focus
Omni is explicitly a pre-seed, first-check investor. Its stated deal parameters are "First Round, First Check," ideally into rounds of $2M or less. A small number of portfolio companies have since progressed to seed.
Check Size
Per its July 2026 Fund I close announcement, Omni writes $700,000 to $1,000,000 pre-seed checks into startups building software, AI, robotics, automation, and connected industrial systems for the manufacturing economy.
Lead Tendency
Omni positions itself as the first institutional check into a company and typically leads or anchors the round at that stage, consistent with its "First Round, First Check" framing.
Recent Activity
Omni closed an oversubscribed $33 million Fund I in July 2026, anchored by Allocator One (a fund-of-funds backing emerging managers) with LPs across 14 countries, including Foxconn Technology Co.'s CIO Yukai Lin as a limited partner. Uptool, an AI-powered quoting platform for machine and fabrication shops, was highlighted as one of Omni's first fund investments; portfolio companies have gone on to attract follow-on participation from Khosla Ventures, Eclipse Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Kleiner Perkins.
Portfolio Highlights
Omni's disclosed portfolio includes twelve companies: Rembrain (AI-guided robotic production-line stations), AI-NC (automated CAD design-flaw detection, the "spell-check for engineering designers"), Tripolar (a physical AI operating platform for industrial facilities), Metis (expert knowledge delivery for technicians), Morale AI (factory-data intelligence, Seed stage), Spatial Support (conversational 3D/CAD product expert), Mimiq (industrial IoT logistics-chain tracking for the $120B+ shipping container market, Seed stage), RunMat (GPU-native MATLAB-syntax computing platform), Uptool (AI quoting operating system for machine shops, explicitly compared to Toast, Shopify, and Service Titan for vertical software), Drafter (a mechanical design co-pilot), Zenode (AI copilot for hardware engineers sourcing electronic components), and Polymath (AI-driven CAD automation with prompt-driven workflows).
Team
- Simon Lancaster, General Partner - former Apple manufacturing/product engineer, co-founder of Omni
- Sabrina Paseman, General Partner - former Apple product design engineer, co-founder of Omni
- Lucas Whipple, Venture Partner
- Alex Huckstepp, Advisor
- Sebastian Spitzer, Advisor
- Webber Wu, Investor
- Tianqi Zhang, Associate
- Michael Choi, Venture Advisor, Korea
Lancaster and Paseman bring more than 30 years of combined operating and investing experience in industrial and manufacturing technology, including nearly 20 years combined overseeing manufacturing operations across Apple's global supply chain, plus prior experience at Google, Blackberry, Arris Composites, and Boston Scientific. Since leaving Apple they have spent roughly five years building a network of over 32,000 industry executives, engineers, and entrepreneurs.
Decision Process
Omni operates as a two-GP partnership (Lancaster and Paseman), supported by venture partners, advisors, and an associate.
Founder Preferences
Omni's stated criteria require technical teams that have "lived and breathed" the target problem in industry for 3+ years, targeting Enterprise Industrials SaaS and Capital-Light Hardware-as-a-Service business models.
Geographic Focus
Omni is headquartered in San Jose, California, and runs a bi-annual "Deep Tech Nexus" event series and regional happy hours connecting founders, investors, and LPs across the US, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Europe, reflecting a global manufacturing and LP network alongside a US-centered deal focus.