Tip Top VC Research
Investment Thesis
Tip Top VC (TipTop VC / TipTop Ventures) is an Austin, Texas-based pre-seed and seed fund built around a single conviction: "the future of AI is vertical." Rather than backing horizontal AI tooling, the firm looks for founders who are reinventing specific industries end-to-end with AI-native software, not just adding a chat assistant on top of an existing workflow. The firm frames its thesis as "Vertical SaaS 3.0": intelligent, embedded, purpose-built software for specific industries, replacing the generic point-solution SaaS of the prior decade. Founder Nick Tippmann describes the opportunity as founders who go deeper, not wider, operating in the gray zone between foundation models and high-stakes, regulated, or operationally complex applications.
Stage Focus
Tip Top VC invests almost exclusively at pre-seed and seed, writing what the firm calls "collaborative" first checks rather than always leading. It occasionally follows portfolio companies into Series A.
Check Size
Publicly stated check sizes vary by source: the firm's own investor-network profile lists a sweet spot around $250K within a $100K-$500K range, while other secondary sources cite a wider $100K-$400K band. We use $100K-$500K as the working range, with $250K as the typical check.
Lead Tendency
Tip Top VC generally participates alongside other pre-seed investors rather than leading rounds outright — its own site describes its checks as "collaborative," and its confirmed investments (Sanii, Oureon) were both multi-investor syndicates rather than solo-led rounds.
Recent Activity
Tip Top VC was founded in 2024 and is investing out of a reported $15M Fund I. Confirmed recent activity includes participating in Oureon Technologies' $3.5M pre-seed round (airspace coordination/interoperability, Austin, TX) in October 2025 alongside GTMfund, Boost VC, BVVC, Ensemble VC, Flyover Capital, and JHH VC. The firm also backed Sanii, a Brazilian elder-care AI roll-up, in its 2023 pre-seed alongside Seedstars, Geist Capital, and GVAngels; Sanii has since raised multiple follow-on rounds. Founder Nick Tippmann remains an active public voice for the vertical AI thesis, appearing on multiple podcasts through early-to-mid 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
The portfolio spans a wide range of "unsexy" but large industries being rebuilt with AI: GC AI (AI platform for in-house legal teams), Revin (AI revenue/booking copilot for home-service trades), ProjectMark (AI-assisted CRM for construction business development), Boost My School (payments and fundraising platform for K-12 schools), Frontiers Market (AI cattle-weighing and ranch management), Global Predictions / PortfolioPilot (AI financial advisor, since grown to $30B+ assets on platform), Sanii (AI-enabled elder home care in Brazil), Quome (serverless cloud/dev platform for regulated industries), Arlow (AI care-coordination for aging adults), Genba (quality intelligence for manufacturers), Finch (AI-native insurance claims), Jooba (AI-run recruiting agency), Examen AI (AI asset manager for commercial real estate), Santé (AI-powered POS/operating system for liquor stores), and Oureon Technologies (airspace interoperability for manned/unmanned aircraft). The portfolio also includes at least two undisclosed stealth vertical-AI companies.
Team
- Nick Tippmann, Founder & Managing Partner — Nearly a decade as a founding team member and CMO at Greenlight Guru, scaling it from zero to 250+ employees, tens of millions in ARR, and a nine-figure investment from JMI Equity, before becoming a full-time investor.
- Bill Loss, Founding Sr. Advisor & LPAC Member — Advisory and LP Advisory Committee role.
- Scott Leese, Venture Partner & LP — Sales/GTM operator background, active in the venture partner network.
- Ershad Jamil, Venture Partner & LP — Venture partner and LP.
The firm is also backed by an LP collective of vertical SaaS and AI founders/executives from companies including ServiceTitan, Procore, Mindbody, and Greenlight Guru, giving portfolio founders access to operator-level go-to-market help.
Decision Process
Nick Tippmann is the sole named Managing Partner and public decision-maker; Bill Loss, Scott Leese, and Ershad Jamil sit as venture partners/advisors rather than co-GPs, suggesting a solo-GP-led process informed by a small partner/LP network.
Founder Preferences
Tip Top VC favors operator-founders tackling large, overlooked, often offline or paper-based industries (construction, ranching, liquor retail, elder care, legal ops) with deep domain fluency, similar to Tippmann's own operator path through vertical SaaS at Greenlight Guru.
Geographic Focus
Headquartered in Austin, TX, with deal sourcing concentrated in Austin, San Francisco, and New York founder networks, plus occasional international investments (e.g., Sanii in Brazil) via co-investor networks.
Access
Unusually for a fund this size, TipTop VC accepts pitches directly through a public Google Form linked from its website rather than requiring a warm introduction, alongside a separate LP-interest form.