
Avidan Ross
Managing Partner
Industrial robotics, embedded systems and technical founders
LinkedIn profile ↗United States / Direct investor

Seeding bold engineers.
Engineers backing technical founders at the earliest stages, from frontier hardware to the software tools used to build it.
Connect Now01 / The fund
Root Ventures leads initial rounds for founders tackling difficult technical problems. Its team has built robotics, hardware, software and machine-learning systems. The firm also backs engineering tools that help other builders work on harder problems.
The current official site gives a typical initial cheque of $3M-$5M and says two-thirds of its funds are held in reserve for follow-on investing. Fund IV was announced in November 2025 at $190M. This supersedes the earlier $250M fundraising target; older Fund III profiles still show $1M-$3M cheques and are not used as current terms.
Partners remain approachable through the official fund route. Lee Edwards explicitly says LinkedIn is not his preferred pitch channel; the profile links below identify people, not a promise that a cold LinkedIn pitch is the best route.
Official Fund IV announcement ↗ · November 2025 fund report ↗02 / Portfolio
All 68 companies in the current official directory. The directory mixes current and historical investments; it does not provide a complete active/exited split. Nine independently verified acquisition or business-transition notes are shown without claiming every other company is still active. Sector groups are DTT technology groupings.

Robotics and AI to prepare, image and assess tissue samples during biopsy procedures.
Holding source ↗
Integrated uses optogenetics and ML to discover drugs for neurodegenerative and age-related diseases.
Holding source ↗
Nautilus Labs allows maritime fleets to optimize shipping routes and energy costs in real time.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
TruckWings automatically closes the cab-to-trailer gap to reduce aerodynamic drag.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Robots for harvesting delicate fruit, including strawberries and grapes.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Stellar Pizza is building the future of automated food production.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
Computer-vision checkout that identifies items without scanning each barcode.
Holding source ↗
Creator builds fully autonomous hamburger robots.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
ApolloShield safeguards airspace from autonomous and remote piloted aircraft.
Holding source ↗
Skycatch provides high resolution 3D mapping and modeling of high-value infrastructure.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Righthook reduces the time and cost required to develop autonomous vehicles.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
SixWheel brings autonomy and electrification to long haul trucking operations.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
Vibe Robotics, founded by Kai Backman and Luke Church, builds novel programming interfaces for robotics.
Holding source ↗
PhyAgents is a stealth robotics company building physical AI for critical infrastructure.
Holding source ↗
Radical Semiconductor provides hardware security down to the individual IC.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
Gen Alpha builds AI copilots for analog and mixed-signal chip design to simplify workflows.
Holding source ↗
DeepWeave helps semiconductor teams generate better PPA solutions to deliver more highly performant chips.
Holding source ↗
Kayhan’s spaceflight operations platform allows satellite operators to focus on their core mission.
Holding source ↗
Esper is devops for devices, allowing teams to build and manage enterprise hardware.
Holding source ↗
Meroxa is a platform for software engineers to build mature, scalable data engineering infrastructure with a single command.
Holding source ↗
Hardware, connectivity and cloud services that help developers build and manage connected devices.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
HASH is an open-source, self-building database that grows and maintains a typed graph of entities on your behalf.
Holding source ↗
Great Expectations built data-quality checks for data pipelines; GX Cloud and GX Core now have separate paths.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Privacy Dynamics ensures your customers' data privacy without slowing down your team.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Engineering design software for complex manufactured parts, now branded nTop.
Holding source ↗
Versatile is an onsite construction data provider for accelerating schedules.
Holding source ↗
Thruwave increases the efficiency and transparency of high volume logistics operations.
Holding source ↗
Computer vision that helps teams understand workforce and operational activity.
Holding source ↗
IaSQL is the next evolution of infrastructure management, allowing you to manage your infra in a database instead of stateless config files.
Holding source ↗
Tools for remotely monitoring, testing and repairing enterprise networks.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Zed is a fully-native desktop code editor focused on high performance, clean design, and real-time collaboration.
Holding source ↗
AI-assisted circuit-board layout, guided by the physical requirements of the design.
Holding source ↗
Aperture manage images and videos with a database purpose-built for data science and machine learning.
Holding source ↗
An AI operator that works inside Shopify stores, handling storefront changes and other store tasks.
Holding source ↗
Trieve provides infrastructure for building AI search into your applications.
Holding source ↗ Transition source ↗
Breakpoint uses AI to detect failures in computer vision models and re-trains them to prevent future issues.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
Determinate provides enterprise-grade solutions for Nix package management.
Holding source ↗
Hunch provides collaborative data exploration and visualization tools for non-technical users.
Holding source ↗
Plamo, a 3D workspace for architecture and design, using AI tools to help create and edit models.
Holding source ↗
Latent helps animators and game developers create life-like 3D assets with AI-powered tools.
Holding source ↗
Patterns provides tools and infrastructure for developing modern AI applications efficiently.
Current company destination not verified; use the holding source.
Holding source ↗
Subtrace automatically tracks all HTTP requests coming in and going out of your production backend.
Holding source ↗
Finite Systems builds browser-based engineering simulation and analysis tools.
Holding source ↗
Ground Control Dev runs facilities management for factories, from site selection and design through construction and operations.
Holding source ↗
Fabro runs coding agents through defined workflow graphs rather than a single chat loop.
Holding source ↗03 / Team & connect

Managing Partner
Industrial robotics, embedded systems and technical founders
LinkedIn profile ↗


Partner
Developer tools, data infrastructure, applied AI and computer vision
LinkedIn profile ↗
Associate
Developer tools, engineering tools, hardware and machine learning
LinkedIn profile ↗Four partners and one investing associate from the current official team. Operations roles are excluded. Official role labels are preserved; some LinkedIn headlines use General Partner rather than Partner.
Official fund website ↗04 / Fund network
Six Fund IV backers named in partner Lee Edwards' November 2025 announcement and corroborated by Newcomer. Names are kept at the level publicly disclosed; unspecified Loyola, DuPont or Brown entities are not expanded into guessed legal investors. No individual LP was verified.
Institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗Institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗Public institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗Institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗Institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗Institutional LP, Fund IV
Named among the backers of the $190M fourth fund. Commitment amount not disclosed.
Partner announcement ↗