Collaborative Fund 2025 Year in Review
A year of unlikely investments, long-term bets, and new beginnings.
From day one, Collaborative Fund has been built around a simple idea: investing at the intersection of for-profit and for-good. That orientation remains the backbone of our firm and the lens through which we make decisions.
Layered on top of that is our investment framework we call The Villain Test. If a company succeeds at massive scale, does the world get better or worse? Time and again, this combination has proven durable. Not because it’s trendy, but because it’s grounded in how real progress happens.
What I’m most proud of this year isn’t the dollars raised or the headlines, it’s the founders and teams we backed: people busting their asses to push the world forward, often in unglamorous yet deeply important ways.
In 2025, we partnered with the following companies:
Maggie’s Refuel: A high-end convenience store brand modernizing and innovating the current gas station experience.
Nomio Nutrition: A plant-compound derived performance supplement that reduces lactate buildup during intense physical activity.
Chirality Bioscience: Advancing precision chemistry to improve how drugs are developed, manufactured, and delivered.
Sunday Light: A circadian lighting system that syncs indoor light with the body’s natural rhythms to support better sleep and well-being.
Rythm Health: The world's easiest blood test, designed to make home diagnostics dramatically simpler and more accessible.
Networked Artifacts: A sleek air quality device that measures CO2, temperature, relative humidity, air pollutants (VOC, NOx), and air pressure.
Good Girl Snacks: 🥒🥒🥒
MoldCo: Comprehensive mold panels with expert support to help people identify and address environmental health risks.
We also invested in two stealth AI companies focused on redefining consumer experiences, and a handful of so-early-we-can’t-mention-them-yet stage companies we’re excited to tell you about soon.
Another major highlight of 2025 was the launch of AIR, our AI Residency program in NYC focused on early-stage consumer AI.
Our view is simple:
AI is fundamentally reshaping the economy
Infrastructure and foundation models came first
Enterprise applications followed
Consumer comes next
This next chapter feels both the most uncertain and the most exciting. If Uber redefined what was possible in the mobile era, what will be the equivalent in AI? We don’t know yet. But we believe AIR could be one of the places where that answer is born. Cohort 2 gets underway next week.
Looking at this list, I have to admit: it’s a weird assortment. But that feels exactly right.
A friend texted me after reading about Nomio: “Of course you guys invested in a broccoli doping business!” 🤣
That made my day.
Collaborative Fund has always built its brand around things most other VCs don’t do. We’ve never tried to fit neatly into a category. We’ve always marched to the beat of our own drum, and these additions to our portfolio reflect that.
Beyond the investments, I’m incredibly proud of the talent we’ve added at Collaborative Fund this year: thoughtful, mission-driven people who raise our bar and strengthen our culture. More on this soon.
We’re heading into 2026 with conviction, curiosity, and a healthy amount of moxie.
Same thesis.
Same drumbeat.
New chapters ahead.
— Craig Shapiro
Founder, Collaborative Fund
Header image courtesy of the Space Type Generator.
Great perspective on things that REALLY MATTER in life. Thanks
The Villain Test framework is a solid filter for early-stage investments. What stands out here is the diversity across consumer health, circadian science, and diagnostics, but all unified by practical impact rather than flashy tech. The AIR residency bet on consumer AI makes sense timing-wise, especially if we're entering a phase where infrastruct ure has matured enough that consumer apps can actually build on stable foundations. Curious how the two stealth AI companies fit into this thesis though.