Fortson VC

Fortson is a Washington State-based venture capital firm, formerly Arnold Venture Group, that partners with unconventional thinkers and founders to build enduring companies through deep, data-driven insights. It invests from pre-seed to seed+ across the Western United States, with its strongest conviction at the earliest stages and an average initial check of approximately $1 million. Its quantitative framework is powered by Fortson OS, a proprietary, continuously learning platform that surfaces signals often missed by conventional diligence, removes bias, and helps the team understand founders better. The system acts as an early filter, and human judgment decides the final five percent. Investments include Sturdy.AI, which raised a $6 million seed round led by Voyager Capital with Fortson participating, and Certiv, a pre-seed company. Fortson is a generalist by nature in B2B, looking for founders with absurd domain expertise in markets experiencing a major inflection. Fortson builds conviction in three steps: founder first, insight second, inflection third. It looks for a founder’s journey, psychology, and resilience, a contrarian insight earned through deep domain expertise, and a market at its turning point, entered before consensus arrives.