Ground Up Ventures
201 South 18th Street #2417, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103, United States
Overview
Ground Up Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm investing in pre-seed and seed stage startups in the United States and Israel.
- Total investments
- 31
- Lead investments
- 3
- Investments · 12mo
- 2
- Active investors
- 3
Sector focus
- Finance
- Financial Services
- Venture Capital
Investment portfolio
- UNIT AI
Led · Equity · Jul 2026
UNIT AI develops a standardized Physical AI platform that automates item-level inventory management, e-commerce fulfillment, and returns for retailers, brands, and third-party logistics providers. Its modular, pay-per-use system can deploy in as little as 1,000 square feet and the company says customers can achieve ROI in under 12 months. In about 22 months of commercial activity, UNIT is working with customers including Barrett, ShipCalm, DaVinci, and Carter, and reports a growing pipeline of enterprise brands and 3PLs whose networks collectively ship billions of inventory units annually. The company emphasizes rapid, low-infrastructure deployments that do not require facility redesign, targeting regional warehouses, micro-fulfillment centers, and back-of-store operations. UNIT was founded by warehouse automation veterans Guy Glass and Avihou Barkay and announced the financing from its San Francisco headquarters to scale deployments and product innovation across North America.
- Baba
Participated · Seed · Feb 2026
Baba is a patient advocacy platform focused on Medicare and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries, pairing each user with a dedicated human advocate—typically a nurse or social worker—who handles insurance issues, scheduling, paperwork, and care coordination. Complementing this personal support, the company offers a phone- and text-based AI companion that delivers daily engagement, reminders, and early warnings when barriers to care emerge, enabling faster advocate intervention. Baba partners with nursing homes, home care agencies, and home health organizations nationwide to introduce its service during care transitions. Since launch, the platform has helped more than 6,000 families navigate complex healthcare journeys. The company is currently enrolling in an IRB-approved clinical study with Johns Hopkins to evaluate clinical and claims outcomes of its model. Proceeds from its recent seed financing will fund expansion of its Medicare-covered services, deepen provider and health-system partnerships, and further embed advocacy throughout the care continuum. Financially, Baba has secured over $6.5 million in seed capital to accelerate these initiatives.
- Portless
Participated · Equity · Jun 2025
Portless operates a global e‑commerce and DTC fulfillment platform designed to help brands identify and address inefficiencies in traditional supply chains. Its model — anchored by a fulfillment center in Shenzhen and a U.S. headquarters — enables U.S. and European brands to buy only the inventory they need and ship directly to customers worldwide with a domestic‑like shipping experience. Founded by Izzy Rosenzweig, Rosenzweig built the Shenzhen fulfillment center while establishing the company’s U.S. HQ. Portless says it empowers hundreds of founders and entrepreneurs to streamline operations, reduce costs, and scale globally. The company raised $18M in funding and plans to use the proceeds to expand operations, extend its fulfillment network to additional global hubs, and fund development efforts.
- Pillar Security
Participated · Seed · Apr 2025
Pillar Security offers an end-to-end platform that addresses the AI lifecycle and its evolving threat landscape, integrating with existing code repositories, data infrastructures, and AI/ML platforms. The platform maps AI-related assets across an organization, including models, datasets, prompts, notebooks, and frameworks. Pillar tests AI models and their underlying infrastructure, applications, and agentic layers, and deploys customized, adaptive guardrails aligned with each AI application's risk profile and business objectives. The company positions its solution to proactively prevent failures that could impact operational continuity. Pillar is already working with AI providers from Fortune 500 companies and tech enterprises such as Similarweb, Eleos Health, and AvidXchange. It plans to use the new funding to support R&D and go-to-market efforts.
- Jones
Participated · Series B · Jan 2025
Jones provides AI-driven software to accelerate collection and verification of insurance certificates, endorsements, and policies, integrating bi-directionally with ERP systems. The company combines machine learning with human compliance experts to scale traditionally manual, error-prone processes. Jones has scaled to 25,039 real estate properties and construction projects covering over 2.5 billion square feet in the United States. Its product suite focuses on insurance verification, collection, integration, and decisioning across commercial and residential asset classes. Jones plans to release a suite of GenAI Agents fine-tuned on proprietary insurance data and millions of verified insurance documents to automate routine tasks and enable autonomous decision-making. The company also intends to continue expanding software workflows and deepening ERP integrations to reduce manual workloads and mitigate insurance claims.