FYRFLY Venture Partners
FYRFLY Venture Partners is a San Francisco early-stage venture capital firm that backs startups built on proprietary data and intelligence. It invests broadly across AI, SaaS and fintech, not water, and its single water bet is PolyGone Systems, a Princeton microplastics-filtration spinout it led at seed. (don't) Waste Water rates its water commitment Occasional.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
FYRFLY Venture Partners has backed early-stage technology companies from San Francisco since 2015, and it funds them through one unusual filter: the company has to build its edge from proprietary data and intelligence. Co-founders Julie Maples, one of the first women to run a venture firm in tech, and Philipp Stauffer, who keeps a quiet bridge open between Silicon Valley and Switzerland, have been writing early cheques together into AI, SaaS, fintech and digital health, sectors where a startup tends to live or die on the data it owns.
FYRFLY Venture Partners is not a water fund, and it would not claim to be one. In my Leviathan database, which logs every water raise I can find, FYRFLY shows up exactly once: PolyGone Systems, a Princeton University spinout that builds patented filters to strip microplastics out of water and a monitoring service that measures how much is there in the first place. As of February 2026, FYRFLY led PolyGone's seed round, alongside the New Jersey Innovation Evergreen Fund and a handful of co-investors.
FYRFLY Venture Partners backing a water company makes more sense once you look at PolyGone the way a data investor does: the microplastics-monitoring side is really a data product, turning an invisible pollutant into numbers a utility or a regulator can act on. FYRFLY has touched one water company across two tracked deals and led it, so for a founder building in water it reads as an occasional, opportunistic backer rather than a dedicated water fund, pulled in where the water problem happens to be a data problem too.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does FYRFLY Venture Partners invest in?
- FYRFLY Venture Partners invests in early-stage technology startups whose advantage comes from proprietary data and intelligence, across AI, SaaS, fintech and digital health. It is a generalist, not a water fund. In the Leviathan database its only water holding is PolyGone Systems, a Princeton spinout that filters and measures microplastics in water.
- What stage does FYRFLY Venture Partners invest at?
- FYRFLY Venture Partners invests early, at pre-seed, seed and early Series A, often leading or co-leading a startup's first institutional rounds from San Francisco. It has worked this way since 2015, running a US-to-Switzerland bridge and backing capital-efficient, data-driven companies in technology rather than any single sector.
- Who runs FYRFLY Venture Partners?
- FYRFLY Venture Partners was co-founded by General Partner Julie Maples, one of the first women to lead a venture firm in technology and formerly founder of Allegro Venture Partners, and Managing Director Philipp Stauffer. The two have invested together in early-stage technology for more than fifteen years across the US and Switzerland.
- Where is FYRFLY Venture Partners based?
- FYRFLY Venture Partners is based in San Francisco, California, at Pier 17 on the Embarcadero, with a working bridge to Switzerland. It has backed early-stage technology founders from there since 2015, looking beyond Silicon Valley to data-driven teams across North America and Europe.
- Is FYRFLY Venture Partners a water investor?
- Not primarily. FYRFLY Venture Partners is a generalist early-stage technology fund, and water is a rare exception for it. Its one tracked water investment is PolyGone Systems, whose microplastics filtration and monitoring fit FYRFLY's data thesis. (don't) Waste Water rates its overall water commitment Occasional.