ATO Ventures, LP provides Early-Stage Venture Capital for Tech Startups

Are you building a high-growth technology startup but feel like early-stage investors just don’t get it unless you’re already scaling?

ATO Ventures, LP was created to fill that exact gap. We work with founders at the earliest stages to help ensure the market is ready for their innovation.

What Is ATO Ventures?

ATO Ventures is a pre-launch venture capital fund. That’s right — we invest before you launch, not after you prove traction. Most investors avoid this stage because the odds of success are too low – more than 80% of pre-seed funded companies will fail. We run Market Validation Testing (MVT) to increase your chance of success.

To us, a “valid market” means:

- Paying Customers: Evidence of real demand—such as pre-sales, credit card commitments, LOIs, or purchase orders.

- Scalable Growth: A large target customer base that can support significant growth.

- Reachable Targets: Customers that can be efficiently and cost-effectively reached through known channels.

In other words, Market Validation Testing (MVT) is the process of conducting experiments to confirm that a startup has enough customers who are willing to pay a profitable price in a scalable, reachable market.

This methodology was developed by our founder, Jennifer P. Hopp, and is also the foundation of the Valid Startup program, used by incubators, universities, and our own studio, ATO Labs.

How It Works

- You submit for funding when you believe you are ready to launch

- If we’re a good fit, we Make a small, pre-seed investment to cover the cost of Market Validation Testing (MVT), usually $20K-$50K

- If the test shows evidence of Product-Market Fit, we make a seed investment of $100K–$250K

Who Is This For?

Ideal Candidate Traits	Not a Fit If…
Pre-launch, pre-revenue tech startups	You already raised institutional capital
Founders solving big problems in fast-growing sectors	Have already generated revenue over $250K
Ready to launch with MVP	Anticipate lengthy R&D or sales cycles
Excited to test and refine to ensure the best possible outcomes	Stuck on a single rigid idea or don’t want to take 3-6 months to test before formal launch

Why We’re Different

We don’t wait for traction to invest. We help create it.