Answer extracted from The Angel Next Door podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What types of companies and sectors is Adaptation Ventures investing across in its pre-seed portfolio?
Adaptation Ventures maintains a balanced 50/50 split between software and hardware companies across a diverse range of sectors including education, fintech, insurance, retail, travel, caregiving, prosthetics, and neurodivergent innovation focused on executive function and workflow tools. The fund is targeting between 20 to 30 portfolio companies with rolling closes through the end of the year, building a deliberately broad ecosystem across disability categories and market segments.
A portfolio built on sector and disability diversity
The breadth of Adaptation Ventures' investment strategy reflects a fundamental belief that disability innovation spans every industry vertical. Rather than concentrating firepower in a single sector, the fund deliberately spreads capital across multiple domains to capture the full range of problems that disabled users and caregivers face daily. Education solutions sit alongside travel platforms, fintech tools exist next to rehabilitation technologies, and prosthetics companies coexist with socializing platforms designed for neurodivergent communities.
This sector-agnostic approach is grounded in a simple insight: as the founders explain in the episode, disability is not a vertical—it cuts across every vertical. A person with a limb difference needs adaptive travel solutions, workplace technology, household products, and financial services. By treating disability as a cross-sector lens rather than a siloed category, Adaptation Ventures positions itself to fund the broadest possible impact.
Hardware and software in equal measure
The 50/50 balance between hardware and software is intentional. Hardware companies—prosthetics, adaptive devices, mobility equipment—require longer development cycles and higher capital intensity but solve deeply felt physical access problems. Software companies—executive function tools, workflow optimization, travel platforms—move faster and often reach users more quickly. This hardware-software equilibrium ensures the fund captures both rapid iteration and deep technical innovation.
The target of 20 to 30 companies reflects a rolling fundraising model, allowing the fund to adjust its thesis and sizing as market opportunities become clearer across the year. This flexibility is detailed further in the full episode discussion, where Brittany Palmer and Rich Palmer elaborate on how their fund structure enables both angel collaboration and traditional VC participation.
"We designed for the kind of hardest user in mind, and when it hits universal appeal, it just explodes."
Brittany Palmer — Co-Founder of Adaptation Ventures and Advisory Board Member at Perkins School for the Blind Innovation Center. Palmer was born with a bilateral below elbow limb difference and spent her early career in environmental health and safety consulting before founding a disability tech company focused on accessible travel. She now leads Adaptation Ventures' mission to build the first credible pre-seed ecosystem for disability, neurodivergence, accessibility, and aging innovation.
That principle—designing for the most constrained user and discovering universal appeal—guides which sectors and companies Adaptation Ventures backs. The sectors represented in the portfolio (education, fintech, insurance, retail, travel, caregiving, prosthetics, rehabilitation, and neurodivergent workflow tools) all emerged because founders or teams identified a genuine gap in how disabled or aging populations access essential services. When solved with rigor, those solutions attract mainstream adoption and market traction.
If you want to hear more about how Adaptation Ventures evaluates deal flow and the specific metrics they use to assess portfolio company potential, the full episode offers deeper insight into their investment framework and the emerging disability tech landscape.
Key takeaways
- Adaptation Ventures splits its pre-seed investments equally between software and hardware companies across all sectors.
- Portfolio sectors span education, fintech, insurance, retail, travel, caregiving, prosthetics, and neurodivergent-focused tools for executive function and workflow.
- The fund targets 20 to 30 portfolio companies with rolling closes, enabling flexible capital deployment and thesis refinement throughout the year.
- Diversity across disability categories and market segments is intentional—disability innovation cuts across every industry vertical, not confined to a single sector.
See also
What percentage of founders with disabilities successfully raise venture funding compared to able-bodied counterparts?
A study done in the UK showed that founders with disabilities are 400 times less likely to raise funding than their able-bodied counterparts. This massive disparity reflects systemic barriers in traditional venture capital access.
What is the curb cut effect and how does it apply to disability tech product development?
The curb cut effect means that when developers solve for a particular disabled person's problem, the solution benefits many more people beyond the original user—creating universal design that expands market reach and impact.
Why is early-stage capital in disability technology so critically underserved by venture capital?
Only 1% of venture capital currently goes to disability-related solutions, and most of that is at later stages. There is no credible early-stage ecosystem for disability tech founders, leaving pre-seed opportunities largely unfunded.