Vice Ventures was founded by Catharine Dockery after mainstream VCs kept telling her their LP agreements barred them from investing in categories like alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, sex tech, gambling, and psychedelics, so the fund treats the stigma around these sectors as a source of less competition and lower valuations rather than a reason to avoid them. Dockery, who grew up with a bartender father, self-funded early deals by selling her apartment before the fund was fully raised, uses a data scientist to study unusual consumer signals like state-by-state usage patterns, and has built one of the few women-led funds in this space.