Longtime Seattle investor Martin Tobias raises $10.5M for early stage B2B software fund

Incisive Ventures, a pre-seed venture firm led by veteran startup investor Martin Tobias, closed a $10.5 million fund that will support nearly 30 enterprise software companies.

Tobias told GeekWire he’s on the hunt for companies that can “reduce friction at scale” — and he sees plenty of opportunity with the rise of AI.

“There are B2B problems that are really solvable given the underlying AI infrastructure that we have, which is really exciting for a B2B software investor,” he said.

Tobias, who ran a number of startups as CEO and was a venture partner at Ignition, formed Incisive Ventures in 2020. This is his first official fund with Tobias as the general partner.

Incisive has already made 16 investments out of the fund, backing companies including Grw AI, which helps scale sales coaching, and Civic IQ, which analyzes government records.

Tobias believes the real value in AI will accrue at the application layer — just as SaaS eventually outpaced cloud infrastructure.

“If you just look at how the cloud went, SaaS ended up being multiples larger than the infrastructure, and I think the same thing is going to happen in AI,” he said.

Incisive writes average checks of $250,000. Tobias prefers startups with two founders that deeply understand customer problems and have a “distribution wedge.”

“Distribution is much more important than product,” he said.

Incisive is primarily focused on backing U.S. startups but is open to global investments — its portfolio includes companies in Sri Lanka and Tanzania.

Several early stage venture firms in the Seattle region are raising new funds, including Ascend, Fortson VC, Founders’ Co-op, Flying Fish, and Graham & Walker. Seattle-based Madrona announced $770 million for two new funds in January.