Catapult Ventures was founded by operators with hands-on experience at Tesla Autopilot, BMW driver-assist, and DJI, alongside venture experience from Kleiner Perkins and Intel, and it focuses on pre-seed and seed founders building at the intersection of hardware, embedded systems, and software across areas like robotics, automation, IoT, space launch, cargo drones, silicon photonics, and edge AI chips. The fund has backed companies such as XNOR, later acquired by Apple, and Oculii, later acquired by Ambarella, reflecting its focus on real-world autonomy and AI that runs on devices rather than relying only on the cloud.