Boot64 Ventures

John Roberts III is managing partner. He came to venture capital from operating a convenience store business before moving into entrepreneurship and investing, a background unusual enough that the National Venture Capital Association profiled him in a member spotlight.

Mickal Adler is general partner, a New Orleans attorney and entrepreneur whose family built Adler's Jewelers, one of the city's longest-standing retail institutions. The pair run the firm from Metairie, just outside New Orleans, and the local grounding is the strategy rather than a footnote: Boot64's argument to Louisiana management teams is that in-state capital removes the pressure to move to Austin or the coasts at the seed stage. The team is small and investment decisions sit with the two partners, which is what lets a $10 million fund write first checks quickly in a market larger funds do not cover.

Boot64 Ventures runs a single vehicle, Magnolia Fund I, which launched in May 2024 at $10 million. Half of that capital came from private investors and the other $5 million from the State Small Business Credit Initiative, channeled through Louisiana Economic Development.

That structure is the firm's defining fact. Boot64 exists to stop early-stage Louisiana companies from relocating in search of capital, and the state match ties its mandate to in-state job creation rather than to pure financial return. The fund has assembled a portfolio of roughly 30 companies across healthcare, consumer products, logistics, artificial intelligence, biotech, fintech, software, energy, climate and frontier technology, a sector spread that reflects a geography-first rather than thesis-first strategy. Boot64 prioritizes Louisiana entrepreneurs, invests across the Gulf South, and goes elsewhere in the United States only selectively.