AF

Adrian Fortino

Founder of Great Lakes Investor Association

Detroit Metropolitan Area

Overview 

Adrian Fortino is a seasoned entrepreneur, engineer, and investor based in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, currently serving as the Managing Director at Mercury Fund. With a strong background in venture capital and start-ups, he has co-founded Great Lakes Venture Capital Association and sits on the boards of various companies, including ArborXR and Aclaimant, while investing in a diverse range of sectors like ConstructionTech, EnergyTech, and FinTech. Fortino's career highlights include leading investments in successful companies like Ambyint and Benson Hill, showcasing his expertise in strategic planning and venture capital. Additionally, his role as a Managing Director at Mercury Fund and various board positions demonstrate his leadership in driving growth and innovation within the startup ecosystem.

Work Experience 

  • Managing Director

    2014 - Current

    Mercury Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm. With $300 million under management, Mercury focuses on entrepreneurs and technology innovation originating in the U.S. Midcontinent. Our investment themes target SaaS, Cloud, and Data Science/AI platforms that make the industrial ecosystems of Middle America more competitive and efficient.

Mercury Fund is an early-stage venture capital firm.

  • Co-Founder

    2024

    A rising tide lifts all boats. An exclusive VC community for Managing Partners and General Partners to collaborate, build trust, share deals, and co-invest. GLVCA is dedicated to fostering a thriving venture capital network within the heartland.

  • Board Director

    2024

    Our vision is to help people live more meaningful lives through the power of XR. To give them time to be more present. For purposeful work, deeper relationships, and a better world.

ArborXR is an enterprise XR device management and content deployment solution.

Raised $12,000,000.00 from Lewis & Clark Ventures, Impact Venture Capital, Mercury, Cortado Ventures and Eagle Venture Fund.

  • Board Member

    2022

    Michigan Founders Fund is a network of entrepreneurs and investors who have pledged 1% of equity, carry or profit to support impactful local organizations throughout the state who are doing the work to better our communities and enrich quality of life.

Michigan Founders Fund is a nonprofit organization that offers funding solutions for community development.

  • Board Director

    2020

    Aclaimant gives companies new ways to reduce the cost of risk and keep people safe. We bring loss prevention, incident management, and analytics into one connected platform that removes complexity, saves time, and produces better outcomes. We uncover problems that companies may not know they have, and fundamentally change the way organizations actively manage risk.

Aclaimant offers a risk reduction platform designed to save time and money on workplace incidents and insurance.

Raised $30,431,176.00 from Royal Street Ventures, Mercury, KEC Ventures, Next Coast Ventures and Aspen Capital Group.

  • Board Director

    2021

    After working on visibility platforms directly with large global retailers and freight shippers, logistics providers, and software vendors for 15 years, we experienced first hand the friction, slowdowns, and wasted time, energy, and dollars that were poured into integrations.

Chain.io is a cloud-based supply chain integration platform designed to optimize supply chain processes.

Raised $18,000,000.00 from High Alpha, EVE Atlas, Grand Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, Mercury and Waybury Capital.

  • Board Director

    2017

    Ambyint delivers an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Driven automation and analytics solution for artificial lift optimization that builds on traditional physics-based techniques. Built on 10+ years of domain expertise, Ambyint automates diagnosis, automatically adjusts operating parameters, and predicts failures, resulting in improved production and reduced LOE. Customers deploy the Ambyint Production Optimization Platform either with existing customer SCADA systems or with Ambyint's High Resolution Adaptive Controllers, which enable higher resolution data acquisition and automated control for artificial lift systems.

Ambyint provides artificial intelligence-based technologies that automates the process of companies in oil and gas industry.

Raised $29,018,997.00 from Mercury, BDC Venture Capital, Accelerate Fund and Montrose Lane.

  • Board Director

    2020

    Construction marketplace for the next generation of skilled labor.

Buildforce is a marketplace and career lifecycle platform for people in the construction trades

Raised $12,425,995.00 from S3 Ventures, Mercury and TDF Ventures.

  • Director

    2019

    The Michigan Venture Capital Association seeks to increase the amount of capital and talent available to venture and angel investors so we can fund Michigan’s most innovative entrepreneurs and work closely with them to transform breakthrough ideas into new companies and industries that drive Michigan job creation and economic growth.

MVCA is a non-profit trade organization designed to bring together venture capital industry.

  • Lecturer

    2015

    Venture capital & entrepreneurship class providing students exposure to new venture development and venture capital.

Articles About Adrian

Relevant Websites