VQ Capital has launched as a thesis-driven, AI-native investment platform designed to help scale companies into category leaders, backed by partnerships with multibillion-dollar family offices and a team of former operators from companies including Amazon, PayPal, Expedia, Deloitte, and IBM.
Announced Tuesday, the New York-based firm is organizing its strategy around two core theses: applying AI to transform marketing-led consumer businesses and investing in what it calls a “Golden Dome” for cyber intelligence. VQ Capital argues that the global economy has moved beyond the predictable pace of Moore’s Law into an “Era of Compounding Change,” driven by the convergence of hardware advances, AI algorithms, and scale.
In consumer markets, VQ Capital said it intends to support companies rebuilding core functions into AI-native systems, spanning customer acquisition and marketing as well as supply chain, fulfillment, and operations. In cybersecurity, the firm said it will target technologies that unify fragmented tools into more interoperable defenses, citing redundancy and siloed capabilities as structural weaknesses that slow response and drive unnecessary spending.
The firm said its leadership structure is built to execute on both mandates, with its cyber strategy led by Yotam Avrahami, described as a former partner at New Vista Capital and Deloitte and a veteran of the Israeli Special Forces. On the AI transformation side, VQ Capital highlighted operator experience from Brian Lent, John Kim, and Praveen Hirsave, pointing to backgrounds in predictive analytics, global enterprise scaling, and AI systems development.
VQ Capital is also differentiating its investment approach from traditional venture models by using a deal-by-deal structure rather than a blind-pool fund, positioning the format as a response to longer venture lifecycles and liquidity constraints. The firm said the structure is intended to allow co-investment alongside its team while maintaining flexibility to pursue high-conviction opportunities.
KEY QUOTES:
“AI acts as a massive force multiplier for talent. As individual leverage compounds, the advantage shifts from massive, scaled organizations toward agile units of high-performance talent. We believe the biggest winners of this era will be built by small, extraordinary teams capable of out-maneuvering incumbent giants.”
John Kim, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, VQ Capital
“Our model is built for today’s compounding environment. We bring in partners who share our mindset and want to co-invest side-by-side with our team. Unlike traditional blind-pool funds, we combine the flexibility to execute complex, high-conviction deals with a relentless focus on generating faster, more efficient returns.”
Yotam Avrahami, VQ Capital
“We named the firm VQ for a specific reason. To succeed in this next computing cycle, you need more than just IQ or EQ. We are here to back the builders who possess the Vision Quotient required to see the future as well as the operational ability to build it.”
Brian Lent, VQ Capital
