True Ventures

True Ventures is a Bay Area early-stage firm founded in 2005 by Jon Callaghan, Phil Black, John Burke, Toni Schneider, and Tony Conrad, and built around a thesis of partnering deeply with founders at the seed and Series A stages across consumer, enterprise, and a meaningful slice of digital health and consumer wellness. The firm has invested in 396 companies over its 21-year history, averaging roughly 18 new investments per year over the last decade, and has been an early backer of category-defining brands including Fitbit, Peloton, Ring, Automattic, Duo Security, and Hashicorp. True is not a healthcare specialist firm but its portfolio includes substantial coverage of consumer wellness, connected devices, mental health, and digital health applications, and the firm’s brand-and-product expertise translates unusually well into the consumer-facing health categories.

Jon Callaghan, the co-founder and managing partner, has anchored the firm since launch and is among the most active general partners on the consumer and consumer-tech bench. Tony Conrad serves as a partner with deep consumer brand experience and has separately launched Wisdom Ventures, a complementary vehicle focused on the intersection of well-being, human connection, and transformative technology, with explicit attention to physical and mental wellbeing, women’s health, ethical AI, and human-connection-centered innovation. Other partners include Adam D’Augelli, Puneet Agarwal, and a broader bench across consumer internet, marketplaces, hardware, and developer tools. The firm’s healthcare-relevant portfolio includes Fitbit (the connected-fitness wearable, acquired by Google), Peloton (connected fitness, IPO), Ring (connected home, acquired by Amazon), and a number of consumer wellness, mental health, and women’s health companies whose names have varied over the years.

True writes initial checks of $1 million to $5 million at seed and selectively up to $10 million at Series A, with the capacity to lead or co-lead at both stages and to follow on into Series B. The firm prefers to lead at seed and is comfortable being the first institutional check, frequently writing alongside angel investors and other founder-friendly seed firms. Geographic scope is primarily United States with selective international deals, and a strong network density in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York.

Founders who should approach True are consumer and consumer-tech operators building digital health, connected wellness, mental health, women’s health, and adjacent consumer-facing categories. Repeat consumer founders with prior brand-building experience are particularly well-aligned. Founders building therapeutics, medical devices that require Class III FDA approval, payer or provider B2B software, or pure clinical infrastructure should pitch other firms. True is also a good fit for hybrid consumer and enterprise companies, particularly when the consumer angle is the primary growth lever and the enterprise sale is downstream.

Entry path runs through portfolio CEOs, the broader True ecosystem of founders and operators, and warm introductions from consumer venture peers including Forerunner, Index, Lerer Hippeau, and Bessemer’s consumer practice. Callaghan and the senior partners are publicly accessible at major consumer and venture conferences, and the firm runs an active operating-partner and founder-platform program that includes annual founder camps, product reviews, and operating workshops. Cold inbound through the True website is read and the firm has a relatively open posture toward direct outreach, particularly when the founder has a strong consumer brand thesis.

In a pitch, lead with the brand, the consumer insight, the product, and the early traction or proof. True partners think in terms of consumer category leadership, brand defensibility, and product-led growth, and they want to see why your company can build a durable consumer franchise. They will probe your unit economics, your retention metrics, your gross margin, and your brand thesis in detail. The firm’s added value is most powerful when founders use the True platform: founder camps, product reviews, brand and design partners, and the firm’s deep consumer venture network for downstream Series A and B introductions. Founders building consumer-led digital health and wellness companies with brand ambition and product-led growth potential will find True one of the most authentically founder-supportive tier-one seed and Series A partners in the consumer health category.