Acrew Capital: The Complete Guide to the Climate Tech and Fintech VC Firm

What Is Acrew Capital?

Acrew Capital is a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm that invests in enterprise software, fintech, and climate tech startups — with a specific, deliberate commitment to backing founding teams from underrepresented backgrounds. Founded in 2019, the firm has grown rapidly from launch to managing over $700 million in assets and building a portfolio of 146 companies in just five years.

The firm was established with a clear point of view that has remained consistent: that the best venture returns come from backing exceptional founders with genuine insights into large markets — and that the venture capital industry’s historical patterns of investment have systematically missed a large portion of exceptional founders because of demographic biases in the sourcing and evaluation process.

This is not a marketing position for Acrew — it is a core investment thesis backed by a specific operational model. The firm has built dedicated sourcing pipelines, evaluation frameworks, and portfolio support programs designed to identify and support exceptional founders from underrepresented groups across its target sectors.

Founding Team and Partners

One of Acrew Capital’s most distinctive features is its founding team — five partners who launched the firm together in 2019 and remain in the same roles in 2026.

Theresia Gouw — Co-Founder and Partner

Theresia Gouw is one of the most accomplished women in venture capital, with a track record spanning over two decades at the intersection of enterprise software, security, and internet infrastructure.

Before Acrew, Gouw was a General Partner at Accel for 16 years, where she led investments in companies including Trulia (acquired by Zillow for $3.5B), Imperva (public, then acquired by Francisco Partners), and Isilon Systems (acquired by EMC for $2.25B). Her portfolio at Accel generated billions of dollars in returns across multiple market cycles.

Gouw has consistently been recognized as one of the most influential investors in Silicon Valley — appearing on the Midas List, Forbes Most Powerful Women, and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business. Her technical background (BS in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley, MBA from Harvard Business School) gives her genuine product intuition in the markets she invests in.

Lauren Kolodny — Co-Founder and Partner

Lauren Kolodny brings deep expertise in consumer, fintech, and enterprise software investing. Before Acrew, Kolodny was a partner at Aspect Ventures, where she co-founded and led the firm alongside Theresia Gouw before the two eventually launched Acrew.

Kolodny has been instrumental in building Acrew’s climate tech software investment practice — a growing area of focus that reflects her conviction in the economic opportunity at the intersection of software and decarbonization.

Vishal Lugani, Asad Khaliq, and Mark Kraynak — Co-Founding Partners

The remaining three founding partners complete a team with expertise spanning growth equity, enterprise infrastructure, security, and international markets. The five-partner founding team structure is unusual in VC — most firms have one or two founding partners. This broader founding team structure has contributed to Acrew’s ability to cover multiple sectors simultaneously without losing investment discipline.

Investment Focus

Enterprise Software

Enterprise software is Acrew’s foundational investment category — the area where the founding team has the deepest collective experience and where the firm’s track record is most established.

Acrew invests in B2B software companies across multiple sub-sectors:

Corporate finance and spend management: Divvy (corporate cards and expense management, acquired by BILL for $2.5 billion) was one of Acrew’s most significant exits and established the firm’s reputation in financial software for businesses.

Cybersecurity: At-Bay (cybersecurity insurance with integrated risk management capabilities) is one of Acrew’s most valuable active portfolio companies at $1.3B valuation.

Infrastructure and developer tools: The firm has backed companies building the infrastructure layer for enterprise software — databases, observability tools, security platforms, and developer productivity software.

Professional services automation: Software companies that automate specific professional workflows — legal, accounting, consulting — represent a recurring theme across Acrew’s enterprise software portfolio.

Fintech

Financial technology is Acrew’s second core pillar — and the one where the firm has its highest-profile exit (Divvy) and active portfolio company (Pie Insurance).

Insurance technology: Both At-Bay and Pie Insurance are fundamentally insurance companies powered by technology. At-Bay underwrites cyber insurance using real-time security monitoring to price risk more accurately than traditional actuarial models. Pie Insurance focuses on small business workers’ compensation, using data analytics to price risk in a market that legacy carriers have chronically mispriced.

Payments and financial infrastructure: Divvy’s success in corporate spend management reflects Acrew’s conviction in companies that reimagine specific financial workflows for businesses — not just building better UX on top of existing infrastructure, but redesigning the underlying business model.

Banking and lending technology: Acrew has backed companies building next-generation banking infrastructure, alternative lending models, and financial data infrastructure that powers both consumer and business financial products.

Climate Tech Software

Climate tech software is Acrew’s fastest-growing investment focus — and the area where Lauren Kolodny has built the deepest conviction and deal flow.

Acrew’s climate tech thesis is specific: the firm invests in software companies solving climate problems, not hardware, infrastructure, or cleantech manufacturing. This distinction matters because:

Margin profile: Software companies in climate tech can achieve the same 70-80% gross margins as traditional enterprise software — something that hardware and infrastructure companies cannot. This makes climate tech software investable on traditional VC return metrics.

Speed to market: Software can be deployed much faster than physical infrastructure — meaning climate software companies can generate revenue and demonstrate traction on VC timelines.

Scalability: A software solution for grid management or carbon accounting can scale globally without proportional increases in capital expenditure — the core requirement for VC-returnable businesses.

Acrew’s climate tech software investments span several sub-sectors:

Energy transition software: Companies helping utilities, grid operators, and energy companies manage the complexity of integrating renewable energy sources, managing demand response, and optimizing grid operations.

Carbon accounting and ESG reporting: Enterprise software for measuring, tracking, and reporting carbon emissions — a rapidly growing market driven by SEC disclosure requirements, EU sustainability reporting standards, and corporate net-zero commitments.

Supply chain sustainability: Software that helps companies measure and reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chains — including supplier emissions tracking, logistics optimization, and sustainable procurement.

Built environment efficiency: Software for building operators, real estate companies, and construction firms to measure and reduce energy consumption and embodied carbon.

The Diversity Investment Thesis

Acrew’s commitment to backing underrepresented founders is not a separate program or ESG initiative — it is integrated into the firm’s core investment process.

The thesis is straightforward: diverse founding teams are systematically undervalued by the venture capital industry because of historical patterns of investment that favor founders who look like previous successful founders. If this undervaluation is real, it creates an opportunity: investors who can identify and back exceptional diverse founders before others do should generate superior returns.

Acrew has operationalized this thesis through:

Dedicated sourcing: The firm actively builds pipelines to founders from underrepresented groups through HBCUs, women’s entrepreneurship networks, diverse founder communities, and accelerator programs.

Evaluation frameworks: Acrew has worked to identify and reduce bias in its investment evaluation process — focusing on market evidence and founder-market fit rather than pattern-matching to previous successful founders.

Portfolio support: The firm provides specific support resources to diverse founders navigating a VC ecosystem that was not designed with them in mind — including connections to customers, talent networks, and follow-on investors.

Investment Process and Criteria

Stage Focus

Acrew invests primarily at Series A — the firm’s most active stage with 43 investments at an average round size of $20 million. It also invests at:

• Seed: 22 investments, average round $6.92 million
• Series B: 20 investments, average round $41.7 million

The Series A focus reflects Acrew’s conviction that this is the stage where it can add the most value: companies have demonstrated product-market fit and initial traction but need capital, connections, and strategic guidance to scale.

What Acrew Looks For

Founder-market fit: The founding team has deep domain expertise, personal experience with the problem, or a structural insight advantage that gives them an edge over better-funded competitors.

Large market with structural tailwinds: Acrew targets companies in markets with at least $1 billion in addressable revenue and secular tailwinds — regulatory change, demographic shifts, technology enabling new capabilities.

Differentiated product with defensible advantages: The product must solve a genuine pain point in a way that competitors cannot easily replicate — through proprietary data, network effects, regulatory positioning, or domain expertise.

Traction appropriate for stage: At Series A, Acrew typically expects $1-5M ARR with clear product-market fit signals — strong retention, organic growth, and customers who would be genuinely upset if the product went away.

Check Size and Portfolio Construction

Acrew typically leads or co-leads at Series A, writing initial checks of $5-15M. The firm reserves capital for follow-on investments in its strongest performers — a portfolio construction approach that concentrates capital in the companies demonstrating the most compelling traction.

Portfolio Highlights

Exits

Divvy → BILL ($2.5 billion, May 2021) Divvy was an Acrew portfolio company that reimagined corporate expense management and card programs for mid-market businesses. BILL acquired Divvy for $2.5 billion in May 2021 — one of the largest fintech acquisitions of that year and a landmark exit for Acrew’s debut fund.

Superpeer → Skillshare Superpeer, a platform enabling experts to monetize knowledge through paid video calls, was acquired by Skillshare. The acquisition validated Acrew’s thesis on the creator economy and knowledge monetization.

Active Portfolio

At-Bay ($1.3 billion valuation) At-Bay is a cyber insurance and security company that underwrites insurance policies using real-time security monitoring data. Unlike traditional cyber insurers who price risk using historical loss data, At-Bay continuously monitors its policyholders’ security posture and adjusts coverage accordingly. The result: better risk selection, lower loss ratios, and a fundamentally differentiated insurance product.

Pie Insurance (~$1 billion valuation) Pie Insurance reimagines small business workers’ compensation insurance — a market worth $40+ billion annually where small businesses are chronically underserved and overcharged by legacy carriers. Pie uses alternative data and machine learning to price risk more accurately, enabling it to offer lower rates while maintaining profitability.

Cato Networks Acrew made follow-on investments in Cato Networks in 2026 — a cloud-native secure access service edge (SASE) platform. Cato represents Acrew’s network security and infrastructure investment thesis.

Why Acrew Stands Out in 2026

In a venture landscape defined by AI hype and mega-fund dominance, Acrew stands out for several reasons:

Genuine sector expertise: The founding team’s collective experience in enterprise software and fintech gives Acrew real competitive advantages in evaluating companies in these sectors — advantages that generalist mega-funds cannot replicate.

Climate tech software before it was obvious: Acrew’s climate tech focus predates the explosion of climate-focused VC funds by several years. The firm has built deal flow and domain expertise that later-arriving competitors will take years to match.

The diversity thesis has performed: Acrew’s portfolio of 15 unicorns, 4 IPOs, and 32 acquisitions from 146 investments since 2019 demonstrates that its investment approach — including its commitment to diverse founders — generates strong returns, not just good intentions.

Institutional LP base: Acrew’s LP base includes major institutional investors — pension funds, endowments, and family offices — whose participation validates the firm’s investment approach and provides the capital stability to pursue long-term conviction investing.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Acrew Capital? A: Acrew Capital is a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm founded in 2019 that invests in enterprise software, fintech, and climate tech startups. The firm manages over $700 million in assets, has backed 146 companies including 15 unicorns, and has a specific commitment to backing founding teams from underrepresented backgrounds.

Q: Who founded Acrew Capital? A: Acrew Capital was founded by five partners in 2019: Theresia Gouw (formerly of Accel, with investments in Trulia, Imperva, and Isilon), Lauren Kolodny (formerly of Aspect Ventures), Vishal Lugani, Asad Khaliq, and Mark Kraynak. All five founding partners remain with the firm.

Q: What stage does Acrew Capital invest in? A: Acrew invests primarily at Series A (43 investments, average round $20M), with additional activity at seed (22 investments, average $6.92M) and Series B (20 investments, average $41.7M). The firm typically writes initial checks of $5-15M and reserves capital for follow-on investments.

Q: What is Acrew Capital’s biggest exit? A: Acrew Capital’s most significant exit is Divvy — a corporate expense management and card platform acquired by BILL for $2.5 billion in May 2021. Divvy was a fintech company that reimagined expense management for mid-market businesses.

Q: Does Acrew Capital invest in hardware or physical climate tech? A: No. Acrew’s climate tech focus is specifically on software companies solving climate problems — not hardware, infrastructure, or cleantech manufacturing. The firm invests in energy transition software, carbon accounting platforms, supply chain sustainability tools, and building efficiency software.

Q: What is Acrew Capital’s approach to diversity? A: Acrew Capital has a specific investment commitment to backing founders from underrepresented backgrounds — women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ founders — across all its target sectors. This is integrated into the firm’s core investment process through dedicated sourcing pipelines, bias-reduction in evaluation, and portfolio support programs, rather than operating as a separate program.

Q: How many unicorns has Acrew Capital backed? A: As of 2026, Acrew Capital has backed 15 unicorn companies ($1B+ valuation) across its portfolio of 146 companies, alongside 4 IPOs and 32 acquisitions.

Q: Where is Acrew Capital located? A: Acrew Capital is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The firm has a team of 45 people including 12 partners.