The 81 Collection Reaches $82M in Fund II Additional Close

Jordan Fulghum's writing about AI spends plenty of time on the person expected to use it. The CTO at The 81 Collection describes the permissions, business knowledge and trust that software needs before it can take on useful work, giving a practical dimension to the Chicago investment firm's backing of services and manufacturing businesses.

The 81 Collection announced an additional close of Fund II at $82M on November 11, 2026. Founded by Vijen Patel, with co-founder Alex Kirshenbaum leading investments, the firm takes minority stakes in founder-owned businesses and aims to support growth through customer cash flow, operating experience and technology.

That combination gives the capital a particular assignment. A clinic or freight brokerage can adopt sophisticated software while remaining a service business, with its existing people responsible for delivering the service. Fund II's disclosed investments in Uptiv and Terra put that relationship between technology and operations inside the portfolio already.

What the $82M Fund II close establishes

The announcement describes Fund II at an additional close, leaving room for further fundraising. Cooley, which advised The 81 Collection, confirms the $82M figure and close description. The amount is the vehicle's announced size at this milestone; the release gives no separate figure for the incremental commitments or final target.

The firm reports more than $145M in assets under management. AUM describes a different measurement from the size of this individual vehicle, and the announcement does not break down its components. Keeping those figures separate makes the scale legible without inventing a capital reconciliation the manager has not supplied.

Fund II is twice the size of the firm's $41M inaugural fund. The original Fund I announcement, issued in December 2022, identifies 2021 as The 81 Collection's founding year and describes a community of entrepreneurs investing alongside it. That early vehicle included DNS Capital among its institutional backers.

DNS Capital is returning for Fund II, according to the new announcement. Its representative points to access to experienced operators as part of the relationship's value. That return connects the larger fund to the firm's original proposition: entrepreneurs who have run demanding physical-world businesses can contribute judgment and relationships alongside their capital.

The founder-owned business inside the mandate

The 81 Collection's current investment criteria identify U.S. services and manufacturing businesses generating $4M–$20M in annual revenue and growing at least 40% annually. Those are screening criteria. They describe the companies the manager seeks, rather than a reported performance record for every holding.

The firm seeks minority ownership and aims to invest about $8M–$10M in total per business, with the ambition of becoming its first and last institutional investor. For a founder, that proposition raises a specific financing question: how much expansion can the business support through the cash its customers generate once institutional equity helps it reach the next stage?

The practical attraction is continuity. A founder who intends to keep operating the company can look for investment help that fits the business already being built, including its customer relationships, employees and physical requirements. Cash generation remains part of the growth plan even after an outside investor joins the cap table.

Patel's background helps explain the mandate. He co-founded Pressbox, the fabric-care business acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2018 and rebranded as Tide Cleaners, and continued leading it after the acquisition before stepping down in 2020. The experience gives his investment argument a concrete origin in bringing technology to an established service category.

AI arrives through the work a customer needs

The disclosed Fund II portfolio offers 2 different settings for that approach. Uptiv operates technology-enabled infusion centers in Michigan, while Terra runs an AI-native freight brokerage. Their inclusion places care delivery and freight operations inside the same investment mandate without requiring those businesses to sell the same product.

Terra's own description of its service starts with shipment information arriving through emails and spreadsheets. The company describes software that extracts shipment details, compares carrier options and coordinates appointments and documents. These are company-described functions; the website's productivity claims are not independently validated here.

For a shipper, the commercial relationship still concerns moving goods. The analytical significance is that AI can reach a customer through the organization already taking responsibility for the shipment. The brokerage's people, carrier relationships and response to exceptions remain part of what the customer is buying as software takes on more coordination.

That is where Fulghum's August essay on business AI adoption connects to the fund's broader strategy. He describes the access, permissions, institutional knowledge and employee confidence needed to put a capable model to work. His argument locates much of the implementation effort inside an organization, where the people using a new tool also have to answer for its mistakes.

Operating support follows the investment

The firm's current team brings investment, operating and technical responsibilities together. Patel is General Partner, Kirshenbaum is Head of Investments, Jeff Jasurda works in Value Creation, Fulghum is CTO and Kelsey Flores is CFO. Jasurda's experience at Tide Cleaners and Uber provides another connection to running service operations.

For founders evaluating this kind of minority capital, the important conversation extends into the work that follows a signed investment. A company needs to decide which process deserves attention, who owns a change and how an improvement reaches the customer. An operating network can make those decisions better informed, while the founder still has to carry them through the business.

DevCuration's coverage of Zacua Ventures' physical-industry fund explores a related role for operating expertise in venture investing. The 81 Collection's name expresses its own thesis that much of the physical economy receives insufficient venture attention. Its new fund gives that thesis a larger vehicle and disclosed examples in infusion care and freight. The opportunity described is modernization within businesses whose customers already need the service, with revenue and operating discipline central to the model.

Fund II now has more capital behind that work, and its earliest disclosed holdings give the mandate specific places to develop. Inside a brokerage, the next useful improvement may begin with the person handling a shipment exception and the information needed to resolve it. Getting that handoff right is part of how The 81 Collection's investment idea reaches the customer at the other end.