Alder VC builds companies with experienced vertical founders. You bring 10+ years of scar tissue in an industry. We bring a GTM playbook that actually converts and an engineering team that ships your MVP in weeks, not quarters.
Most venture studios hunt for generic founders and hand them a generic problem. We do the opposite. You arrive with the wound. We bring the tools to treat it.
We are not a coach. We are not a fund that writes a check and disappears. We sit next to you and build the first version of the company.
A written, tested, customer-validated plan for the first 50 conversations and the first 5 paying customers. We run it with you.
An in-house engineering and design team ships a real product in 8 to 12 weeks. No outsourced agency work. No vaporware demos.
The thousand small things that sink first-time and second-time founders. We handle the ones we can and introduce you to the ones we can't.
We don't do cohorts. We don't do demo days. You come in when you're ready and we start the week after the term sheet.
A 30-minute call. No deck required. We want to hear the story of the problem.
We spend two weeks together pressure-testing the thesis with real buyers.
If we both want to move forward, we sign and the build starts Monday.
MVP live, first customers signed, seed round prepared within a quarter.
Weekly 1:1s with a partner who has been in your seat.
We source and screen your first engineering and GTM hires.
Vetted counsel for formation, contracts, IP, and employment.
Bookkeeping, payroll setup, and a clean QuickBooks from day one.
Brand, website, and product design from a senior team.
Warm paths to 150+ downstream VCs and strategic buyers.
Analytics pipeline and a weekly metrics review you won't dread.
A peer group of other vertical founders going through the same week you are.
We publish our terms. If a studio won't tell you their numbers upfront, that's a signal. Here are ours.
You keep majority equity from day one. We take a minority stake sized to the capital and work we put in.
Your equity is yours. We don't punish founders who hit a rough patch with clawback provisions.
Our active build period is one quarter. After that, we're on your cap table and your corner, but you run the company.
Practical frameworks for operator-founders building software in niches they know cold.
Why founders with a decade inside a vertical consistently out-execute generalist founders — and what that means for how we invest.
Read → Vertical SaaSThe case for building software for one industry instead of every industry, and why operators are the right people to do it.
Read → StrategyWhat makes a vertical SaaS moat real — data network effects, switching costs, and workflow lock-in explained.
Read → Founder FitWhy domain credibility matters more than idea validation at the earliest stage, and how we screen for it.
Read → MetricsWhy NRR benchmarks look different in vertical software, and the expansion levers that actually move the number.
Read → MetricsVertical SaaS companies churn less — here's why, and how to build retention into the product from day one.
Read →No application form. Send us two paragraphs about the problem you know better than anyone, and we'll be back in 48 hours.
Pitch us