Lauren DeLuca
Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Motivate Venture Capital
Chicago, United States
Lauren DeLuca is a Founder and Managing Partner of Motivate Venture Capital, a Chicago-based Pre-Seed and Seed investor.He co-founded a family of niche FinTech firms and was an active Angel investor. In 2012, he co-founded Sailfish Systems, a managed services and market data provider for trading firms, banks, and hedge funds. Sailfish merged withVictory Networks in 2013 to serve clients across the US and Europe. The combined business was ultimately sold to QuantHouse, a Paris-based trading technology provider, in 2017.He co-founded Oxford Intelligence Partners at the beginning of 2015, a boutique stock market-analytics firm. Clients included many Fortune 500 companies before a successful exit to Q4 Inc., a Toronto-based strategic acquirer serving 1000+ clients. His personal Angel portfolio spans a multitude of B2B/B2C verticals and contains over thirty early- and growth-stage businesses, including Chime, HomeChef, TradingView, Appcast, Popular Pays, DeskPass and PostProcess Technologies. He received my MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame where he graduated Cum Laude in 2001.
- Total investments:
- 60
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 12%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Lauren DeLuca invests in
Stages Lauren DeLuca invests in
Countries Lauren DeLuca invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Round size
- Seed
- $653k–$3.2M
- Pre-Seed
- $675k–$1.4M
- Series A
- $2.1M–$5M
Investment Focus
Industry
- Software 12 (20%)
- FinTech 6 (10%)
- Financial Services 6 (10%)
- Internet 4 (7%)
- Education 4 (7%)
Stage
- Seed 27 (45%)
- Series A 11 (18%)
- Pre-Seed 4 (7%)
- Funding Round 2 (3%)
- Angel 1 (2%)
Country
- United States 34 (57%)
- Canada 2 (3%)
- India 1 (2%)
- Brazil 1 (2%)
- United Kingdom 1 (2%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| VeroSkills retrains refugees into AI/Automation/Software Engineering careers through a self-paced program combined with human and AI tutoring. | $5.3M / Oct 29, 2025 | ||
| HELIXintel tracks the condition of all equipment in one place, from anywhere, on any device. It is a B2B marketplace for equipment operators to purchase aftercare services from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their authorized network. The company simplifies maintenance management to save business cash, time, and energy. | Series A / Jun 12, 2023 | ||
| At Eko we are making it possible for every FI to offer a digital investment solution. We are calling our white-label product 'Investments as a Service'.We built it around the fact that more than 50% of Americans want to invest their money at their trusted financial institution. However, when a FI does not offer a digital investmentproduct, this is only 1%. | $958K / Pre-Seed / Jun 11, 2023 | ||
| At Eko we are making it possible for every FI to offer a digital investment solution. We are calling our white-label product 'Investments as a Service'.We built it around the fact that more than 50% of Americans want to invest their money at their trusted financial institution. However, when a FI does not offer a digital investmentproduct, this is only 1%. | $700K / Pre-Seed / Nov 09, 2022 | ||
| Quiltt enables financial innovators to access the best account aggregation and transaction enrichment providers through one lightweight integration and one simple contract. Our mission is to unlock the next wave of fintech innovation by removing technical and commercial barriers to build with financial data. | $3M / Seed / Jul 11, 2022 | ||
| Paperchain is an instant payments card for online creators. Paperchain makes it possible to be paid as fast as your content is streamed by simply connecting your streaming channels to your personal Paperchain card. When you stream, you get paid. Spend it, withdraw it, or earn interest on it. No more loans, no more advances or credit cards. Yourdigital content revenue, paid every day. Paperchain powers the creator economy with a web3 layer that makes content interoperable with digital assets and community monetization models.The internet of goods meets the internet of money.Go to www.paperchain.io | $1.4M / Pre-Seed / Jul 01, 2021 | ||
| HELIXintel tracks the condition of all equipment in one place, from anywhere, on any device. It is a B2B marketplace for equipment operators to purchase aftercare services from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their authorized network. The company simplifies maintenance management to save business cash, time, and energy. | $1.6M / Seed / Jun 01, 2021 | ||
| Sarna means Sarna Holdings, Inc. and its next generation trading technologies and digital trading experiences through its wholly-owned subsidiaries. Brokerage services are offered through Sarna Finance LLC, a FINRA licensed broker dealer. Software and technology services are offered through Sarna Technologies LLC. | $950K / Pre-Seed / Mar 10, 2021 | ||
| Quiltt enables financial innovators to access the best account aggregation and transaction enrichment providers through one lightweight integration and one simple contract. Our mission is to unlock the next wave of fintech innovation by removing technical and commercial barriers to build with financial data. | $675K / Pre-Seed / Nov 27, 2020 | ||
| Conservation Labs is an Amazon Alexa Fund portfolio company. We founded Conservation Labs to help you save money and better manage our natural resources.This is our big challenge: there are over 3 trillion gallons of unwanted water use each year in the U.S. alone, costing us $70 billion.With water, a little knowledge goes a long way. H2knowhelps you save money and improve our water use. | $1.7M / Seed / Nov 13, 2019 | ||
| See all 60 investments → | |||
Co-Investors
About Motivate Venture Capital
Motivate Venture Capital is a venture capital firm based in Chicago, IL. MVC invests in incredible founders with strong domain knowledge building new companies with very high growth potential in large and growing markets. Primary verticals of focus include Fintech, Insurtech, Payments, B2B software, B2B marketplaces, Crypto, DeFi, Blockchain, andweb3.
Motivate Venture Capital Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Courtney Trunk
Associate
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David Wieland
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
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Jackson Bubala
Senior Associate
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Lauren DeLuca
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
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FAQ
What does Lauren DeLuca invest in?
Lauren DeLuca invests primarily in Software, FinTech and Financial Services startups, most often at Seed and Series A stage. Most of the 60 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is Lauren DeLuca's check size?
Lauren DeLuca typically joins rounds of $653k–$3.2M at Seed, $675k–$1.4M at Pre-Seed and $2.1M–$5M at Series A. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Lauren DeLuca participates in.
How do I contact Lauren DeLuca?
Public channels for Lauren DeLuca include LinkedIn and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Lauren DeLuca last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Lauren DeLuca closed in Oct 2025. Shizune tracks 60 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 Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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