Fontinalis Partners is a Detroit venture capital firm co-founded in 2009 by Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Company, and Chris Cheever, alongside Ralph Booth and Mark Schulz. It was one of the first funds organized around next-generation mobility, backing companies in efficient movement years before mobility became a mainstream venture category. Its early portfolio included Lyft, nuTonomy, Postmates and Telogis, and the firm recorded roughly 20 exits in its first decade, including nuTonomy's $450 million sale to Delphi in 2017, Postmates' sale to Uber in 2020 and Lyft's 2019 IPO. Fontinalis raised a $100 million second fund in 2016 and closed Fund III at $104 million in August 2021, bringing assets under management to about $270 million at that time. The firm invests from seed through Series B and has offices in Detroit and Boston. Its strategy has since broadened beyond mobility to what it calls the new frontiers of industry, spanning industrial innovation and energy, with recent investments in semiconductor manufacturing, AI inference, robotics, freight intelligence and fleet electrification. Bill Ford now holds Founder Emeritus status, while Cheever remains Managing Partner leading the investment team.
Early portfolio company Lyft went public on Nasdaq in its 2019 IPO, one of roughly 20 exits from the firm's mobility portfolio alongside nuTonomy's $450 million sale to Delphi in 2017.