We are a Silicon Valley-based
Venture Capital firm investing in asset-light, early-stage startups disrupting foundational industries.

Deep Sector Expertise
Driving Risk-Adjusted Returns

Top 5%

DPI

Top 5%

IRR

Our Investment Team.

Marco Marinucci co-founded Hella Ventures, Jordan Greene co-founded AEye (Nasdaq IPO), Steven Hong was a partner at Kleiner Perkins and co-founded Oculii (acquired by Ambarella), and Frank Huber served on the Management Board of HELLA and Investment Committee for HELLA Ventures.

Marco Marinucci

General Partner

Frank Huber

Venture Partner

Jordan Greene

General Partner

Tony Cannestra

Venture Partner

Steven Hong

General Partner

Our Advisors.

Luminaries of the automotive industry supporting our fund and portfolio.

Jon Lauckner

Former CTO General Motors

Mary Chan

Fmr President Alcatel-Lucent, BoD Magna, SBA

ESSENTIANEWS

Press

Oct 15, 2024

Kinetic Automation is using AI, robotics to make EV repairs easier

Kinetic's CEO Nikhil Naikal was Interviewed by Yahoo!Finance

Press

Apr 8, 2024

PWC & Essentia Ventures - Future of AI in the Automotive Industry

Podcast with PwC, Strategy& (Jonas Seyfferth) and Essentia Ventures about the influence of AI on the Industrial Market.

IPO

Feb 17, 2021

Lidar maker AEye to go public via $2 billion deal

The deal with CF Finance Acquisition Corp III is expected to provide AEye with gross proceeds of $455 million, raised by the SPAC during its IPO and from private investors including GM Ventures, Subaru-SBI and Intel Capital, among others.

Press

Aug 4, 2022

Investors Watch for Startup Red Flags

Marinucci says “We have to adapt to this new world. Fewer experiments on the research side will be funded. We must be more selective and predict where the market will be in five years.”