Difference Partners

We invest in companies that are improving the lives of those who learn and think differently. Difference Partners is a fully committed $30M venture fund. In early 2018, I wrote an investment thesis for an autism-focused venture fund targeting enormous problems across therapy, employment, education, financial services, and housing. I socialized this memo with a handful of close friends and investors, including Fred Poses. Ten years ago, the Poses Family founded Understood.org, a non-profit focused on empowering people who learn and think differently. These differences are variations in how the brain processes information and can affect reading, writing, math, focus, and following directions. These are lifelong conditions, with the most commonly known ones being ADHD and dyslexia. Misinformation, stigma, lack of awareness, and other barriers, such as cost, can stand in the way of people getting the support they need. We know this is a group that is vastly underserved, has huge potential, and represents more than 70 million people - more than 20 percent of our population today. Fred and I agreed that innovation was desperately needed in this category to increase outcomes that lead to more people thriving. Despite agreeing that more startups needed to solve these problems, we realized there were some real barriers to entry and decided to monitor the space closely. Two years passed, and the pandemic made it clear that it was time to act. This led to the formation of Difference Partners. A new fund solely focused on investing in startups that improve the lives of those who learn and think differently.