ODDBIRD VC — Manifesto

ODDBIRD VC — Manifesto: Backing top global engineers re-industrializing the West.

When COVID-19 took my wife's father in 2021, one thought lingered through the wake of loss and lull: why do the brightest minds ignore the problems that hit so close to home?

My sense is that the most fundamental problems are the hardest to solve. The solutions, when compared to social networks or CRM software, are messy, rarely obvious, and offer a less clear risk-reward profile. Over time, venture capital optimized for the latter, leaving critical systems like manufacturing, healthcare, bio, critical supply chains, and real-world automation to incumbents, governments, and the occasional scientific moonshot.

Recently, this has begun to shift.

The cascading effects of COVID-19 exposed the fragility of global supply chains and the medical system. Military conflict reminded nations that critical capabilities could not be concentrated in a single country. Tariffs forced companies to rethink the geography of supply and demand.

The West is now rebuilding critical systems it once led, at a pace accelerated by AI. ODDBIRD exists to support the engineers carrying that work forward.

Why Now And For A Long Time To Come

For decades, startups targeting re-industrialization faced a confluence of forces working against them. All three have quietly shifted, setting the stage for an explosion of new ventures:

The buyers are ready. Traditionally rigid industries are now beginning to realize the productivity gains enabled by recent advances in AI, though adoption remains in its infancy. A 2025 McKinsey study found that 88% of businesses use AI in some capacity, while only 1% regard themselves as fully AI-mature.

The talent is ready. As re-industrialization accelerates, the best engineers are following the opportunity. Those once locked up by Google, Meta, and Airbnb are now flocking to where the potential for real impact is greatest: SpaceX, NVIDIA, and Anduril.

The capital is ready. For decades, growth venture capital avoided anything that wasn't software or networks — the prevailing wisdom held that physical businesses could not return venture-scale outcomes. The rise of NVIDIA, SpaceX, and Tesla — together worth roughly $8.5 trillion — has detonated that assumption. Robotics alone drew $40.7B in 2025, 9% of all venture funding. Enterprise SaaS, the asset class that defined the last cycle, is seeing its multiples compress.

The moats are deep. We've observed that businesses underpinning re-industrialization tend to be remarkably durable. Once they become the rails everyone else runs on, they are nearly impossible to rip out. The most successful companies in re-industrialization deepen this advantage by stitching together capabilities across disparate domains — intelligence, data, distribution, financing — into a single integrated whole. The sheer complexity of assembling these pieces into a coherent product keeps the vast majority of would-be entrants at the door. We believe this dynamic forms a deep moat against the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, and even perhaps AGI, protecting enterprise value over the long arc.

Why ODDBIRD

An investment in ODDBIRD is not an investment in a new firm, but in a seasoned team that has already helped secure over $1.7B in growth capital from leading institutional investors. The team is led by Dr. V, who spent a decade at Lightspeed, where he led several of the firm's earliest venture investments in manufacturing and healthcare. In our view, this depth of institutional experience is uncommon at the pre-seed and seed stage today.

The Network Edge. A lifetime of network compounding. Nearly ten years at Lightspeed has built Dr. V a network rarely found at the seed stage—one he actively uses to connect portfolio companies with later-stage investors and strategic partners. As a Stanford alum, he stays plugged into the community, consistently sourcing some of the sharpest emerging talent on campus.

Fundraising experience hardened through cycles. Helping unicorn companies raise from the most sophisticated investors — through pandemic shutdowns, rising rates, and shifting trade policy — has produced a sharp instinct for how to communicate with a wide range of investors, build agility into operating plans, and sequence capital with discipline.

Intuition that matters at seed. About twenty years ago, Dr. V left medicine to start Prima, a primary care clinic chain. The successes and failures taught him where technology leverage actually matters, when to vertically integrate, and how to attract top talent. At the seed stage, before financial validation is present, founders need partners with the intuition to spot the next big opportunity or risk. Without having operated yourself, that intuition doesn't exist. This is the rare ability to look around corners.

What We Believe

Venture is fundamentally the business of funding imagination. The work, therefore, is not about evaluating what an idea is today, but envisioning what it can become. With this conviction in mind, we:

Buy puzzles, not pieces. Re-industrialization is physical and unromantic by nature, and it rewards founders who build past the API—those willing to step back from the piece in their hand and see the whole board. At ODDBIRD, we look for that vantage point. We screen for founders who command not just the software, but consider the implications around it: how does their software shift current bottlenecks, and what new opportunities open up when those constraints are lifted?

Don't under-TAM. As of 2026, Airbnb's realized market is approximately 34,000x larger than its original projection. The discrepancy between realized market and initial TAM is not exclusive to Airbnb; the best founders consistently expand a market rather than accept its early framing. Dr. V has observed this pattern firsthand in his own investments. Manufacturing software was widely viewed as a niche until Zetwerk reimagined the business model and scaled into billions in gross trade. Population health software was regarded similarly until Innovaccer emerged as the data platform powering AI workflows across the industry, now generating over $200M in annual revenue.

Value hindsight as much as foresight. Our team screens for founders with startup experience—founders who have built before but are not satisfied with "once"; founders who built something small and now want to build something expansive. The combination of past entrepreneurial experience and the hunger to do it again at larger scale is what, in our eyes, makes a founder truly worth backing.

Invest in global builders. Re-industrialization is, by its very nature, a global undertaking. Supply chains routinely cross national borders, and clinical trials are conducted across multiple continents. In our experience, founders with a global perspective—often through operating in markets beyond the United States—consistently demonstrate a more holistic worldview: one that proves foundational to building a category-defining business.

Track Record

Proof, not promise.

Foundational Backers

Ravi Mhatre and Bejul Somaia—Global Managing Partners of Lightspeed ($50B+ AUM), who have built billion-dollar venture businesses from the ground up—were the first to back ODDBIRD, a kind of sponsorship few new funds receive. A decade ago, the two hired Dr. V into the firm, oversaw his development, and served as sounding boards through difficult board situations. We are grateful to have some of our closest friends and mentors backing us on day zero.

Join Our Mission

We are building a legendary investment firm. If you are a Limited Partner or founder who resonates with our view of the world—we would love to meet you.