Nicolai Wadstrom

Nicolai is the Founder, CEO & General Partner of BootstrapLabs, a leading Silicon Valley based Venture Capital firm focused on Applied Artificial Intelligence, and the first VC firm to focus solely on AI since 2015 – with over 30 investments in AI first companies by Feb 2024, when BootstrapLabs become part of Ares Management (more details here).

BootstrapLabs is now an Ares company, and Nicolai Wadstrom is now a Partner, Co-Head of the Venture Capital Group and AI & Innovation Groups of Ares Management.

Nicolai launched his first business at 15, first tech startup in his early 20’s and have been launching and building companies through-out his professional career and launched BootstrapLabs in San Francisco Bay Area in 2008.

He brings 25+ years of operational experience as founding CEO & CTO scaling software technology platforms in VR, Internet, Financial Trading Systems (publicly listed on NASDAQ:OMX), Enterprise Software, etc.

Through BootstrapLabs he has invested in, advised, and mentored 45+ companies and founding teams, helping them successfully build and scale proprietary technology, products, teams and operations.

He is applying lifetime of operational, entrepreneurial and technology product development experience to support the BootstrapLabs portfolio companies to build and scale.

He is also a frequent speaker and mentor at top Universities and Conferences in the US and Europe on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Disruption, Startups and Venture Capital.