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§ Venture Capital · New York City, NY, USA
Early-stage venture capital firm investing in technical founders for pre-seed and seed deep tech startups across atoms, bits, and cells.
Key people at Atypical Ventures.
Atypical Ventures is a New York-based early-stage venture capital firm that provides pre-seed and seed funding to technical founders building transformative deep technology and software companies. The firm focuses its investments on frontier concepts spanning atoms, bits, and cells, targeting complex sectors such as artificial intelligence, aerospace, cybersecurity, web3, and distributed systems. Operating as a traditional venture fund backed by limited partners, the organization writes first-check investments for startups developing market-transforming solutions in machine learning, computer vision, satellite infrastructure, telecommunications, and advanced developer tooling. The firm's investment strategy and portfolio management operations are guided by key personnel and advisors including General Partner Chris Wake, Partner Lili Rogowsky, and Venture Partner Matt Abrams. To back engineers developing plausible science fiction technologies for global commercial markets, Atypical Ventures was established in 2019 by founder Chris Wake.
Atypical Ventures is a New York-based venture capital firm that invests primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages, focusing on visionary technical founders building breakthrough technologies across "atoms, bits, and cells"—a metaphor for hardware, software, and biotech domains. Their mission centers on backing "engineers with empathy," meaning founders who combine deep technical fluency with emotional intelligence to build impactful companies. They typically invest between $500K and $1M in startups that pursue radical technical insights or "plausible science fiction" that seem impossible initially but are likely inevitable in the near future. Rather than targeting narrow market pain points, Atypical looks for foundational technologies that can shift multiple industries, emphasizing long-term partnership and technical translation[2][3][1].
Founded by Chris Wake, a former technical founder with experience scaling companies like Spire, Atypical Ventures emerged from a desire to be the kind of early believer and technical partner Wake wished he had when starting his own ventures. The firm was established to support frontier ideas that are just barely possible today but hold transformative potential. The founding team includes Chris Wake as Managing Partner, Lili Rogowsky as Partner, and Matt Abrams as Advisor & Venture Partner. The firm has evolved to focus on deep technical innovation across sectors, leveraging Wake’s background in building high-IQ, high-EQ teams and scaling startups with low attrition[3][4].
Atypical Ventures rides the wave of frontier deep tech innovation, including advanced hardware, software, and biotech breakthroughs that are on the cusp of becoming commercially viable. The timing is critical as rapid advances in science and engineering create opportunities for startups to build foundational technologies that can disrupt multiple industries simultaneously. By focusing on "plausible science fiction," Atypical positions itself at the forefront of emerging trends where technical risk is high but market risk is mitigated by the broad applicability of the innovations. Their approach influences the ecosystem by supporting companies that might otherwise struggle to find early capital due to the complexity and long timelines of their technologies[3].
Looking ahead, Atypical Ventures is poised to deepen its influence in the frontier tech space by continuing to back technically ambitious founders who are solving hard problems across atoms, bits, and cells. As technologies like AI, biotech, and advanced materials mature, the firm’s focus on foundational primitives rather than narrow applications will likely pay off by enabling portfolio companies to scale across multiple sectors. The growing demand for deep tech innovation and the increasing sophistication of early-stage founders with both technical and emotional intelligence will shape Atypical’s journey. Their long-term partnership model and technical fluency position them well to remain a key player in the evolving venture capital landscape for frontier technologies[3][2].
Key people at Atypical Ventures.
Atypical Ventures has more than 26 tracked investments across 21 companies. The latest tracked deal is $30.0M Series A in Ventaris Surgical in January 2026.
