Chris Cheever is the founder and managing partner of Fontinalis Partners. See contact routes.
Chris Cheever is the founder and managing partner of Fontinalis Partners, a Detroit-based venture capital firm he launched in 2009 with Bill Ford and other partners after prior experience at Launch Capital, Highbridge Principal Strategies, and UBS. The firm’s investment thesis centers on next-generation mobility—encompassing autonomous vehicles, industrial robotics, logistics, and sustainability—and it invests stage-agnostic from seed through Series B across the U.S., Canada, and Israel. Fontinalis typically writes checks between $250,000 and $5 million and often leads rounds, as seen in Cheever’s involvement in Series A and B investments for companies like Verity and Humatics. Notable portfolio companies include Lyft, which achieved a $4.1 billion valuation by 2015; Humatics, a high-precision localization firm; Vecna Robotics, an autonomous mobile robot developer; and Skyryse, an aviation technology company. Cheever serves on the boards of multiple portfolio firms and has helped take companies public or sell them to Fortune 500 buyers, though no distinctive public writing or unique point of view beyond the firm’s mobility focus is documented in availa
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