FutureFirst Debuts $50M Fund for Vertical AI

FutureFirst is the creation of co-founders Hila Rom and Tammy Mahn, who bring over two decades of combined experience in technology investment and leadership. Mahn is a veteran VC, previously serving as a managing partner at Verizon Ventures and holding senior roles at Pitango and Evergreen, with notable exits including Varonis and Vdoo. Rom founded and managed RUNI Ventures, where she was an early investor in several startups. The fund's strategy targets "medium-sized" exits of several hundred million dollars within two to three years of a Series A round, a model designed for faster returns. They plan to make initial investments of around $1.5 million per company. This approach focuses on specialized AI solutions that can be acquired by larger corporations, rather than building massive standalone companies. FutureFirst's thesis centers on the unique data advantage of vertical AI companies. Co-founder Hila Rom notes that while general-purpose LLMs train on public information, vertical-specific companies leverage private, proprietary data like internal corporate conversations and insurance company files to create a defensible moat. The Tel Aviv-based firm has already secured commitments for about half of its $50 million target, with Brooks-Keret, a CFO-as-a-Service firm, as its anchor investor and strategic partner. Other investors include senior executives from the finance and healthcare industries in the United States and Europe. Tomer Golan, previously of RUNI Ventures and the Momentum accelerator, joins as Principal to manage deal flow.