About Footwork
Footwork is a venture capital firm founded in 2021. It is primarily based out of San Francisco, United States. As of Sep 2026, Footwork is an active investor, having invested in 20 companies, with 7 new investments in the last 12 months. It primarily invests in Series A round in United States based startups. Its investments are spread across a wide range of sectors from Enterprise Applications to Retail and High Tech. Most recently it participated in the $***** Series B round of Confido Overall, Footwork portfolio has seen 1 unicorn and 1 acquisition, namely Watershed and GPTZero. A lot of funds co-invest with Footwork, with names like Pear VC sharing a substantial percentage of its portfolio. Footwork has team of 4 people including 2 partners.Key Metrics
Team Members
Portfolio Count
Portfolio Sectors
Portfolio Locations
Rounds of Entry
Series A, Seed & 1 more
Portfolio Acquisitions
Portfolio Unicorns
Footwork's List of Top Investments
Footwork has a portfolio of 20 companies, one of which is a Unicorn. Their most notable investments are in Snout and Onton.Their portfolio spans across United States, India and New Zealand. They have invested in Enterprise Applications, Retail, High Tech and 11 other sectors, across stages such as Series A, Seed and 1 more. Here is the list of top investments by Footwork:
1. Watershed
Provider of platform for enterprise sustainability programs, measurement, reporting, and action. The platform offers tools for carbon accounting, emissions reduction, and sustainability disclosure preparation. It facilitates target setting and progress tracking toward decarbonization. The platform supports audit-grade data and methodologies vetted by third-party auditors.
Key facts about Watershed
- Founded Year: 2019
- Location: San Francisco (United States)
- Valuation: $*****
- Stage: Series C
- Total Funding till date: $185M
- Employee Count: 643 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Kleiner Perkins, Emerson Collective and 11 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series C, Dec 22, 2025, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
AI-powered models and a global network of long-duration smart balloons. It designs and operates technology to capture atmospheric profiles. The company provides access to data, including over oceans and remote places. It offers a deep learning forecast model utilizing proprietary data. The company transforms forecast data into actionable insights and automations.
Key facts about WindBorne Systems
- Founded Year: 2019
- Location: Palo Alto (United States)
- Stage: Series B
- Total Funding till date: $62M
- Employee Count: 98 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: TransLink Capital, Susa Ventures and 9 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series B, Aug 05, 2026, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
3. GPTZero
AI powered text detection platform for academic and professional use. It provides tools for identifying plagiarism and artificial intelligence generated content online. It offers an accurate AI checker to detect content created by AI and verify instances of plagiarism. The platform is intended to assist educators, learners, authors, hiring managers, and cyber security to detect AI content in the work.
Key facts about GPTZero
- Founded Year: 2023
- Location: Princeton (United States)
- Stage: Acquired
- Total Funding till date: $13.5M
- Employee Count: 126 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Uncork Capital, Reach Capital and 7 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series A, Jun 13, 2024, $*****
- Highlight: Acquired
4. Fuse
Loan origination solutions for banks and lenders. It allows its users to integrate its platform without any coding into their system which helps users in loan origination and lead generation. It also allows users to create or update applications, credit reports, initiate asset valuation, credit decisions, control and audit logs, workflow approval, and more.
Key facts about Fuse
- Founded Year: 2011
- Location: New York City (United States)
- Stage: Series A
- Total Funding till date: $30.9M
- Employee Count: 73 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: FJ Labs, Primary Venture Partner and 5 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series A, Mar 16, 2026, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
5. Protege
Provider of platform that connects data holders and model builders. It enables the safe and secure sharing of training data for artificial intelligence (AI) models, empowering data-driven innovation.
Key facts about Protege
- Founded Year: 2024
- Location: New York City (United States)
- Stage: Series A
- Total Funding till date: $65M
- Employee Count: 97 as on Aug 31, 2026
- Investors: Liquid 2 Ventures, Flex Capital and 8 Others
- Latest Funding Round: Series A, Jan 08, 2026, $*****
- Highlight: Editors' Pick
Footwork's Year-on-Year Investment Trends
Footwork has invested in 20 companies over the last 5 years, with an average of 3 new investments annually in the last 5 years. In 2025, it made 3 investments, while as of Sep 2026, it has made 6 investments in this year. Its most recent first time investment was in Confido and most recent follow-on round was in Protege.Year | No. of Investments | ||
|---|---|---|---|
1st Round | Follow-on | Total | |
2026 (YTD) | 5 | 1 | 6 |
2025 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
2024 | 4 | 1 | 5 |
2023 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
2022 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
2021 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
Footwork's Investments by Stage
Footwork has made 12 investments in Series A stage with an average round size of $16.2M, 5 investments in Seed stage with an average round size of $7.7M and 2 investments in Series B stage with an average round size of $33M.Stage of entry | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
Series A | 12 |
Seed | 5 |
Series B | 2 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
Footwork's Investments by Sector
Footwork has a diverse portfolio, with companies operating in the Enterprise Applications, Vertical SaaS, Consumer, FinTech and Retail. Notably, it has invested in 19 Tech companies, 16 Enterprise (B2B) companies, 14 Software companies and at least 11 companies focusing on Saas.Sector | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
Enterprise Applications | 14 |
Vertical SaaS | 6 |
Consumer | 4 |
FinTech | 4 |
Retail | 4 |
Others | 15 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
Footwork's Investments by Geography
Footwork has made most investments in United States (17), followed by India where it has made 1 investment.Country | No. of Investments |
|---|---|
United States | 17 |
India | 1 |
New Zealand | 1 |
Note: We have considered here, only first round of investments
Footwork's recent investments
Footwork has made 6 investments in 2026 so far. Confido and Anything are the latest among them.Here are the most recent investments by Footwork:
Filter this listDate | Company | Location | Round Details | Round Amount | Co-Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sep 22, 2026 | United States | Series B | 2006 | [+4] | |
Aug 21, 2026 | United States | Series B | 2423 | [+2] | |
Apr 21, 2026 | United States | Series A | 4598 | [+1] | |
Mar 16, 2026 | United States | Series A | 4804 | ||
Jan 28, 2026 | United States | Series A | 3459 | [+2] |
Unicorns in Footwork's Portfolio
Footwork has 1 unicorn in its portfolio - Watershed. The most recent unicorn in their portfolio is Watershed which became a unicorn in 2022, 4 years before Footwork first invested in it.Here is a list of unicorns in Footwork's portfolio:
Tracxn Score | Company | Short Description | Founded year | Sector | Location | Company Stage | First Investment/ Acquisition Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
73 | Provider of platform for enterprise sustainability programs, measurement, reporting, and action | 2019 | San Francisco | Series C | {tkeima |
Acquired companies in Footwork's Portfolio
1 company from Footwork's portfolio has been acquired. The most recent acquisition was GPTZero in Jun 2026 by Superhuman for $*****.Here are Footwork's portfolio companies that got acquired most recently:
Company | Acquisition Date | First Invested on | First Round of Investment | Round Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Jun 24, 2026 | Jun 13, 2024 | Series A | 8200 |
Team profile of Footwork
Footwork has a team of 4 members including 2 Partners and 1 Principal located in United States. Footwork's team does not sit on the board of any company as of now.Here is a list of all team members in Footwork:
Name | Designation | Location | Board Memberships | Contact Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Partner | San Francisco | - | ||
Partner | - | - | - | |
Principal | - | - | - |
Co-investors of Footwork
Over the past 5 years, 117 investors have co-invested in Footwork's portfolio companies. This includes funds and angels.
- Invested before Footwork: Ubiquity Ventures, Khosla Ventures and 36 others have invested in rounds before Footwork. There is 1 company where Ubiquity Ventures has invested before Footwork and 1 company where Khosla Ventures has invested before Footwork.
- Top Co-investors of Footwork: 63 investors entered a company along with Footwork. These include investors like Pear VC (2 companies).
- Invested after Footwork: A total of 16 investors have invested in Footwork's portfolio after their investments. Top Investors include Convective Capital (1 company), Susa Ventures (1 company) and Jetstream (1 company).
Recent News related to Footwork
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Confido Raises $55M Series B to Accelerate AI-Powered Back-Office Automation for CPG BrandsThe SaaS News•Sep 23, 2026•Insight Partners, Confido, Watchfire, Footwork and 2 others
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The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 4/21/2026AlleyWatch•Apr 21, 2026•Monk, Footwork, Acrew Capital, Futwork and 1 other
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Protege Raises $30M to Solve AI Development’s Biggest Bottleneck Through Licensed Real-World DataAlleyWatch•Jan 08, 2026•Protege, Shaper Capital, Footwork, Flex Capital and 9 others
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AI Commerce Startup Onton Raises $7.5M To Take On Retail GiantsBitcoin Ethereum News•Nov 26, 2025•Onton, OpenAI, Bank of America, Liquid 2 Ventures and 6 others
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Anything Raises $11M Series A at $100M ValuationSilicon Valley Journals•Sep 26, 2025•Anything, M13 Company, Footwork, Uncork Capital and 1 other
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Protege Secures $25 Million Series A to Expand AI Training Data Platformintelligence360•Sep 01, 2025•Protege, Footwork
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Fintech 'Confido' Raises $20 Million in Series A Funding Specializing in Consumer Goods BrandsWowtale•Aug 14, 2025•Confido, Watchfire Ventures, Footwork, Y Combinator and 1 other
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Protege Announces $25 Million Series A to Expand AI Training Data PlatformTMC•Aug 14, 2025•Protege, Shaper Capital, Datavant, LiveRamp and 6 others
