Dafina Toncheva
General Partner @ U.S. Venture Partners
Menlo Park, United States
Dafina Toncheva is a Series B investor at U.S. Venture Partners in Menlo Park focused on Software and SaaS. Dafina confesses some envy towards entrepreneurs, “because they are brave, constantly attempting to beat the odds with a relentless conviction in their ideas and abilities”. To bravery and perseverance, she adds that creativity, incurable optimism, a willingness not to fit in and the desire to leave a mark define the successful entrepreneurs Dafinahas encountered. Her colleagues in turn describe her as empathetic and intuitive with a tendency towards impatience, when results are not realized.Ironically, “beating the odds” and incurable optimism describe, to a large extent, Dafina’s life experience. A teenage emigrant from Bulgaria in 1998 she arrived alone in the U.S. without guarantees, but with a relentless conviction to succeed. Leaving her homeland was “much more difficult than I expected because, like most of the entrepreneurs I meet, I was focused on the upside possibilities and was not prepared for the difficulties I would inevitably encounter in a new place”. Yet, she parlayed her determination and talents into degrees at Harvard and Stanford, positions with leading corporations and a successful career in technology investing.Dafina invests in emerging technologies in the enterprise space with a focus on Enterprise SaaS applications and security. Dafina joined USVP in 2012 and has since led investments in and joined the board of several early stage software companies. She is currently on the board of InsideSales.com – the leading sales acceleration platform, Prevoty – leader in application security, Apptimize – provider of one of the fastest growing mobile monetization and engagement platforms, and Luma Health – a powerful doctor patient communications platform.Dafina joined USVP from Tugboat Ventures, where she was a principal investor since 2010. Prior to Tugboat, she spent two years at Venrock, where she helped expand the firm’s investments in the areas of SaaS, virtualization, security, infrastructure and enterprise applications. While at Venrock, Dafina led the first institutional investment round in Cloudflare. Some of her other investments from that time include Aria Systems, Matrixx Software, and Kenna Security.Before becoming a venture capitalist, Dafina held positions in development and product management at Microsoft, where she focused on authentication systems, digital signatures and business workflow. She worked on MSN Live ID and MS Office, and co-authored several key patents. She earned a M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Computer Science, magna cum laude, with special focus on cryptography, efficient algorithms and database systems from Harvard University.An avid reader, Dafina singled out Paulo Coehlo’s classic, The Alchemist as transformational because it reinforced her faith in optimism. “The book leads you to the conclusion that if you want something bad enough, the world will conspire to help you achieve it.” This is a notion she shares with most of the entrepreneurs she encounters.
- Total investments:
- 36
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 42%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Dafina Toncheva invests in
Stages Dafina Toncheva invests in
Countries Dafina Toncheva invests in
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 9 (25%)
- SaaS 6 (17%)
- Health Care 6 (17%)
- Cyber Security 5 (14%)
- Mobile 3 (8%)
Stage
- Series B 10 (28%)
- Series A 9 (25%)
- Series C 6 (17%)
- Seed 2 (6%)
- Series D 2 (6%)
Country
- United States 14 (39%)
- Israel 2 (6%)
- Canada 1 (3%)
- France 1 (3%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Delfina
|
Delfina provides a personalized prenatal care system that uses the power of data to keep moms and babies safe during pregnancy. Their data-driven approach is uncovering unique insights in prenatal care to pave the way for clinical innovation. | $17M / Series A / Jan 28, 2025 | |
Sepio
|
Founded in 2016 by cybersecurity industry veterans, Sepio's HAC-1 is the first hardware access control platform that provides visibility, control, and mitigation to zero trust, insider threat, BYOD, IT, OT and IoT security programs. Sepio's hardware fingerprinting technology discovers all managed, unmanaged and hidden devices that areotherwise invisible to all other security tools. Sepio is a strategic partner of Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance company, and Merlin Cyber, a leading cybersecurity federal solution provider. | $11M / Series B / Aug 13, 2024 | |
Zero Networks
|
Zero Networks automates the development and enforcement of network access rules throughout an entire network. Its technology customizes who can access what in a network by learning how users and machines communicate. Zero Networks provides a bypass mechanism through a two-factor authentication wall on users’ mobile phones, ensuring unusual butlegitimate connections are not affected.With Zero Networks, there are no agents to deploy, no policies to configure, just airtight security for all users and machines. Zero Networks was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. | $20M / Series B / Dec 13, 2023 | |
TrustLab
|
Trust Lab develops software for social media platforms that helps in detecting misinformation, hate speech, and harmful content. | $15M / Series A / Jun 15, 2023 | |
Percepto
|
Percepto is a developer of autonomous drone technology for inspection and surveillance.Drones hold the potential to disrupt multi-billion dollar industries including energy, security, insurance, agriculture, and more. Drones completely change the way inspection, measurement, surveillance, and deliveries are done today. Still, the main barrier tomaking them a must-have platform is the ability of drones to perform tasks autonomously.The company is at the forefront of redefining how industrial sites and critical infrastructure are holistically inspected and monitored, harnessing remote robotics to autonomously collect, aggregate, and analyze visual data.Leveraging its experience with Percepto Sparrow, the most deployed drone-in-a-box solution on the market, Percepto introduced Percepto AIM (Autonomous Inspection and Monitoring) the first end-to-end autonomous inspection and monitoring platform. Percepto AIM empowers the remote operation center of the future to assess risk, minimize downtime, drive efficiency, increase safety, and reduce operational costs. | $67M / Series C / Jun 12, 2023 | |
Surgical Safety Technologies Inc.
|
Surgical Safety Technologies delivers data-driven AI technology to hospitals for safe surgeries. It empowers surgeons with an objective assessment of technical and non-technical proficiency using academically validated frameworks. | $15M / Series A / May 04, 2023 | |
|
Sepio
|
Founded in 2016 by cybersecurity industry veterans, Sepio's HAC-1 is the first hardware access control platform that provides visibility, control, and mitigation to zero trust, insider threat, BYOD, IT, OT and IoT security programs. Sepio's hardware fingerprinting technology discovers all managed, unmanaged and hidden devices that areotherwise invisible to all other security tools. Sepio is a strategic partner of Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurance company, and Merlin Cyber, a leading cybersecurity federal solution provider. | $22M / Series B / Oct 25, 2022 | |
Nfinite
|
Nfinite develops a cutting-edge CGI platform that leverages AI and 3D technology to help brands and retailers enhance their sales with limitless product visual experiences. Our new offering includes comprehensive AI training and fine-tuning services, utilizing high-quality synthetic data to tailor AI models for specific industry needs. Thisensures superior performance, reduced deployment times, and improved rendering efficiency, making us the ideal partner for AI-driven initiatives across various industries.The company was founded in 2017 and is based in the US and in France. | $100M / Series B / Jun 07, 2022 | |
|
Nfinite
|
Nfinite develops a cutting-edge CGI platform that leverages AI and 3D technology to help brands and retailers enhance their sales with limitless product visual experiences. Our new offering includes comprehensive AI training and fine-tuning services, utilizing high-quality synthetic data to tailor AI models for specific industry needs. Thisensures superior performance, reduced deployment times, and improved rendering efficiency, making us the ideal partner for AI-driven initiatives across various industries.The company was founded in 2017 and is based in the US and in France. | $15M / Series A / Feb 03, 2022 | |
Luma Health
|
Luma Health patients should be able to connect to their healthcare provider in a way that’s modern and mobile-first. Their services include healthcare, patients, appointments, scheduling, patient messaging, patient engagement, patient communication, public health, patient access, and more. | $130M / Series C / Nov 23, 2021 | |
| See all 36 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About U.S. Venture Partners
U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) is a venture capital partnership, helping entrepreneurs transform their ideas and efforts into world-changing companies. The firm focuses on early-stage ventures in information technology and health care, where innovation is unbridled and has led to the creation of economic wealth and millions of jobs over the pastthirty-plus years of the firm's existence. Areas of particular interest to our investment professionals include enterprise software, IT security, consumer internet, mobile, and e-commerce, healthcare, and IT-enabled healthcare services. The USVP team consists of former entrepreneurs, technologists, corporate executives, financial professionals, and industry domain experts.
U.S. Venture Partners Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Phil Young
Senior Advisor
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Casey Tansey
General Partner
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Dafina Toncheva
General Partner
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Dale Holladay
CPA/CFO
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Jacques Benkoski
General Partner
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FAQ
What does Dafina Toncheva invest in?
Dafina Toncheva invests primarily in Software, SaaS and Health Care startups, most often at Series B and Series A stage. Most of the 36 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
When did Dafina Toncheva last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Dafina Toncheva closed in Jan 2025. Shizune tracks 36 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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