# Santa Barbara Venture Partners

> Santa Barbara Venture Partners is a VC fund backing Software. See 23 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Santa Barbara, United States
- Total investments: 23
- Last investment: Jan 2026
- Lead investor: 4%
- Fund size: $11M
- Last fund: Jun 2022
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/santa-barbara-venture-partners
- Website: http://www.SantaBarbaraVP.com

Santa Barbara Venture Partners is a VC fund in Santa Barbara focused on Software and Artificial Intelligence. Venture capital firm that invests in tech and tech-enabled companies. The firm has unique expertise in building leading software companies, generating substantial revenue through on and offline customer acquisition, and in marketing in general. AUM ~$65M in 2025

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Santa Barbara Venture Partners. Shizune tracks 4 team members at Santa Barbara Venture Partners. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/santa-barbara-venture-partners?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $1.5M–$6M |
| Series A | $12M–$30M |
| Venture - Series Unknown | $7.5M–$23M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 9 | 39% |
| Artificial Intelligence | 6 | 26% |
| Information Technology | 4 | 17% |
| Big Data | 3 | 13% |
| Analytics | 3 | 13% |

58 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 6 | 26% |
| Venture - Series Unknown | 5 | 22% |
| Seed | 3 | 13% |
| Series B | 3 | 13% |
| Series D | 2 | 9% |

6 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 14 | 61% |
| Israel | 1 | 4% |

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Dan Engel | Managing Partner and Founder | 17 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dan-engel |
| Dan Hedden | Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dan-hedden |
| Harold Hughes | Venture Scout | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/harold-hughes-2 |
| Ishan Amin | Limited Partner - Investor | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ishan-amin |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hydrosat | Hydrosat is a deep-tech company using thermal satellite data and AI to address society's most urgent challenges. We provide geospatial intelligence for food production, security, and natural resource management. | $60M | Series B | Jan 15, 2026 |  |
| Automotus | The Automotus team is on a mission to transform urban mobility by helping cities, airports, fleets, and small businesses manage the unprecedented rise in congestion and emissions from commercial vehicle traffic. We’ve developed first-of-its-kind computer vision technology that helps our customers make smarter policy decisions using comprehensive,real-time curb activity data; fully automate payment for commercial vehicle (un)loading and parking; automate enforcement of curbside violations; make accessible real-time curb availability data for drivers; and incentivize adoption of electric vehicles. From cities to residents and small businesses, our solutions are meant to benefit everyone by making our communities safer, healthier, and more efficient places to live and move. Our technology supports cities across the US and in Europe, including the nation’s first zero-emissions delivery zones in Santa Monica and Los Angeles. | $7.5M | Venture - Series Unknown | Dec 12, 2025 |  |
| Rwazi | Rwazi is a decision intelligence platform built on consumer-trained AI, designed to help global teams grow market share and drive revenue by making faster, sharper, and more accurate decisions.By turning real-world consumer activity into high-signal intelligence, Rwazi surfaces what matters most and pinpoints the highest-leverage moves acrossteams and functions. Rwazi’s continuously adapting AI delivers timely, context-rich guidance that aligns execution with business priorities—minimizing noise, reducing uncertainty, and sustaining outperformance in competitive markets. | $12M | Series A | Jul 15, 2025 |  |
| BuyerCaddy | BuyerCaddy provides a strategic lens for future tech purchases and current savings. | $1.5M | Seed | Dec 19, 2024 |  |
| Meez Culinary Solutions | Meez Culinary Solutions is a SaaS company that transforms recipe content including videos and pictures into an interactive database. Meez Culinary Solutions helps its users to ideate, organize and search, collaborate, share, and execute their ideas. | $8.9M | Venture - Series Unknown | Dec 04, 2024 |  |
| Orca AI | Founded in 2018 by a team of Navy veterans, Orca AI, a maritime tech startup, empowers shipping companies to enhance their operational safety, efficiency, and sustainability through a single AI and computer-vision-based operations platform. By October 2024, 900 vessels have been booked, and 550 installations have already been completed. Theplatform is trusted by key industry players across various shipping segments, including MSC, Seaspan, Maran Tankers / Angelicoussis Group, NYK, and Marubeni. The company has raised a total of $38 million in funding over two rounds from US, UK, and Israeli VCs and employs 80 people across its offices in London, Athens, Singapore, and Tel Aviv. | $23M | Venture - Series Unknown | May 23, 2024 |  |
| Curri | Curri is a construction materials provider that develops a last-mile delivery app that connects supply stores to customers.The Y Combinator-backed logistics startup company delivers construction supplies and materials with an “Uber-like” last-mile delivery model. App users arrange an order, open the Curri app, and enter pickup and dropofflocations to book the service. Curri’s drivers then pick up the supplies and ensure the order is correct before fulfilling the delivery. It offers live updates via the app to let customers follow and share the status of their deliveries. It also provides proof-of-delivery signatures and photos for tracking, regulatory, and compliance purposes.The Los Angeles, California-based company was founded in 2018 by Matt Lafferty and Brian Gonzalez. | $42M | Series B | Jun 06, 2023 |  |
| Orca AI | Founded in 2018 by a team of Navy veterans, Orca AI, a maritime tech startup, empowers shipping companies to enhance their operational safety, efficiency, and sustainability through a single AI and computer-vision-based operations platform. By October 2024, 900 vessels have been booked, and 550 installations have already been completed. Theplatform is trusted by key industry players across various shipping segments, including MSC, Seaspan, Maran Tankers / Angelicoussis Group, NYK, and Marubeni. The company has raised a total of $38 million in funding over two rounds from US, UK, and Israeli VCs and employs 80 people across its offices in London, Athens, Singapore, and Tel Aviv. |  | Series A | Apr 07, 2023 |  |
| Hydrosat | Hydrosat is a deep-tech company using thermal satellite data and AI to address society's most urgent challenges. We provide geospatial intelligence for food production, security, and natural resource management. | $15M | Series A | Mar 05, 2023 |  |
| Spin.AI | Spin Technology is a SaaS data protection company based in Palo Alto, California. We protect SaaS data against ransomware, human error and insider threats. Our solutions extend security for Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 environments and protect organizations against Data Leak & Data Loss in the cloud by monitoring, securing, andbacking up sensitive SaaS data. Our Artificial Intelligence provides 24x7 monitoring and detection against harmful threats, identifies business risks, while our automated run books and deploys powerful countermeasures to ensure continuous operation, improve compliance, and reduce IT costs.Our platform "SpinOne" provides end-to-end fully automated protection against ransomware, insider threats and human error. It's designed to provide an unique security expertise and help to save a tremendous amount of time for security teams and administrators.SpinOne helps organizations gain full visibility over data security by providing an extra protection layer of new generation AI-based security and backup beyond the capabilities of what a typical cloud service provider can offer.Find out more at spin.ai | $16M | Series A | Aug 09, 2022 |  |

10 of 23 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Cultivation Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/cultivation-capital) — VC Fund, 6 deals together
- [Techstars](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/techstars) — VC Fund, 5 deals together
- [Conductive Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/conductive-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Expon Capital](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/expon-capital) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [Freeflow Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/freeflow-ventures) — VC Fund, 3 deals together
- [OCV](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ocv) — VC Fund, 3 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does Santa Barbara Venture Partners invest in?

Santa Barbara Venture Partners invests primarily in Software, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology startups, most often at Series A and Venture - Series Unknown stage. Most of the 23 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 Santa Barbara Venture Partners's check size?

Santa Barbara Venture Partners typically joins rounds of $1.5M–$6M at Seed, $12M–$30M at Series A and $7.5M–$23M at Venture - Series Unknown. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Santa Barbara Venture Partners participates in.

### How do I contact Santa Barbara Venture Partners?

Public channels for Santa Barbara Venture Partners 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.

### Who are the partners at Santa Barbara Venture Partners?

The team at Santa Barbara Venture Partners includes Dan Engel (Managing Partner and Founder), Dan Hedden (Partner) and Harold Hughes (Venture Scout). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### 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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