The early-stage firm will back seed founders building high-margin, mission-critical software in overlooked verticals across the U.S. and Europe
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, UNITED STATES, January 13, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Early-stage venture capital firm Somersault Ventures announced the final close of its $20 million inaugural fund to back seed-stage founders building software and marketplace companies in overlooked or highly specialized verticals or functions across the U.S. and Europe.
The firm typically invests up to $1 million at Seed and up to $3 million in follow-on rounds. Somersault began deploying capital in 2023 and has already assembled a portfolio reflecting its thesis, including Hauler Hero, SwingVision, Foresight, Intento, and Ridepanda.
Somersault’s strategy centers on identifying what it calls “future monopoly potential” at the earliest stages. The team invests based on a first-principles framework emphasizing three characteristics: high margins that won’t be affected at scale, essential and perpetual use cases, and a potential path to market dominance within highly specialized verticals or functions driven by various types of competitive moats.
“We’re focused on ventures that can scale into multibillion-dollar outcomes by solving fundamental, enduring problems,” said Alex Turbanov, Founder and General Partner. “However, we avoid extremely crowded markets and instead concentrate on categories where depth of insight matters and where sustainable leadership is achievable.”
While many larger funds pursue horizontal strategies in the biggest markets, looking for $100B outcomes, Somersault intentionally goes the opposite direction with narrow verticals and functions that may remain underexplored due to their overly complex or hidden nature. “Counterintuitive markets can often produce the strongest returns,” said General Partner Alex Nevinskiy. “By digging deep into specialized industries, we find founders with unique domain expertise and markets where competition is low, but the upside is meaningful.”
Somersault’s product diligence incorporates selective involvement from Venture Partner Julia Nechaieva, who previously spent more than 15 years in product leadership roles at Twitch, YouTube, and Google. She helps evaluate investments in which the founders’ UX or product genius appears essential to long-term success.
The fund’s LP base includes several dozen tech founders and product leaders from global technology companies such as Google, Nvidia, and Microsoft, as well as executives or alumni from leading investment banks, consulting firms, and hedge funds. Deal flow is driven through the partners’ networks, including strong ties to the UC Berkeley ecosystem, which accounts for nearly half of the fund’s early deployments.
Somersault Ventures is led by General Partners Alex Turbanov and Alex Nevinskiy, along with Venture Partner Julia Nechaieva. Turbanov and Nevinskiy previously invested together as angels while at different venture firms before establishing the Somersault partnership, and Turbanov and Nechaieva were MBA classmates at Berkeley Haas.
Liliana Pertenava
Axxilion Strategic Communications
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