When I met Mark Fiorentino, one thing was clear: Mark is constantly learning. From starting out in investment banking, to jumping off a steady ship to work for a former roommate’s then-little-known startup called Stripe, to an incredible run at Index Ventures, Mark’s career and life trajectory has been powered by changes, pivots and the quest for new experiences – ask him about being a Sommelier or his plans for upcoming CrossFit competitions.

As a seasoned VC and former operator, Mark will connect with the next generation of growth-stage founders in fintech, applications and beyond. He’ll be based out of BCV’s SF office.

When I first spoke with Mark about joining BCV, it became clear that he shares our view that BCV is a firm that embraces the ongoing transformation required to stay at the top of the game in venture capital. In his words, “We spend every day assessing the growth and success trajectory of startups and I can’t think of a firm with a steeper growth trajectory right now than BCV.”

Over the past several years, Mark has invested in SaaS and fintech startups applying a picks and shovels model to solving fundamental problems plaguing rapidly growing industries. A few of Mark’s notable investments:

• RevenueCat, a buzzy in-app subscription platform co-founded by Miguel Carranza and Jacob Eiting. Like Stripe playing the dual role of payments platform and index of commerce shifting online, RevenueCat moonlights as an index of the rapidly-expanding paid consumer subscription ecosystem across mobile and web. Fun fact: At this point, there is a 95% chance RevenueCat is on your iPhone!
• Loop, a transportation logistics platform founded by former Uber and Flexport executives using AI to help shipping, logistics and transportation customers unlock capital trapped in complex supply chains. An average of 20% of freight invoices include rate errors which directly yield higher costs for shippers. In parallel, legacy firms across supply chains regularly rely on manual and/or outdated processes to manage shipping, logistics and supply chain documentation. Loop’s AI technology removes complexity by automating everything from linking disparate documents, to surfacing root-causes of discrepancies, to facilitating contract renegotiations.

As AI matures and costs tied to GPUs and models steadily decrease, Mark sees potential for the LLM era of AI innovation to make even more of an impact than the machine learning stage of years past. And as LLMs shift the power of AI from largely quantitative to “human” outputs, the use cases and applicability to industries like financial services, healthcare, logistics, utilities, manufacturing and beyond have multiplied a hundredfold.

Mark’s optimistic. He’s joining BCV to connect with founders and growth stage teams balancing shifting regulatory environments, blurring of talent requirements with the scaling of enterprise-grade AI apps and how to best leverage AI or vertical SaaS to deliver value to companies and customers for years to come.

So why BCV when Mark so clearly could work anywhere?

In his own words: “BCV can help companies go from 0 to 1 – and from 10-1,000 and beyond. There's a uniquely massive network of enterprise executives and relevant platform infrastructure around BCV’s team of investors that draw from operator experience to guide startups through growth and maturity stages on a daily basis.”

Please join me in welcoming Mark to the team. We’re excited to be working alongside him. And if you’re a growth stage founder working in fintech, AI apps or vertical SaaS, reach out to Mark directly at mfiorentino@baincapital.com.