Laura Petterle

Laura Petterle is the Managing Partner and Chief Financial Officer of Fontinalis Partners, a Detroit- and Boston-based venture capital firm founded in 2009 by a team that included Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, Ralph Booth, Chris Cheever, Chris Thomas, and Mark Schulz. The firm is dedicated to backing entrepreneurs reshaping mobility and the broader "new frontiers of industry." As CFO, Laura leads the team responsible for all aspects of the firm's financial reporting, governance, compliance, transactional and legal due diligence, and shareholder relations.

Her career is rooted in finance and corporate transactions in the media and telecommunications industries. Since 1994 she has served as Executive Vice President and CFO of Booth American Company (BAC), overseeing the finances of BAC's media and telecommunications holdings and its parent-company operations. From 1994 to 1998 she managed financial and reporting responsibilities for BAC's U.S. Cable Television Division, handling the financial oversight, monetization, and divestiture of numerous businesses — including managing the process (1996–1998) that led to the sale of BAC's U.S.-based cable assets for approximately $853 million.

Before joining BAC, Laura spent roughly 12 years in similar financial leadership roles at Maclean Hunter, a Canadian cable television and telecommunications company. Across her career she has built financial reporting systems and executed domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan, with a concentration in accounting.

Her role at Fontinalis is that of a firm principal and financial steward rather than a front-line, thesis-driving deal partner. This distinction matters for founders: investment sourcing and diligence are typically led by the firm's investment partners, while Laura anchors the fund's financial operations, fund administration, and compliance.

• Fontinalis invests in early-stage companies "boldly reshaping mobility" and adjacent connected-industry sectors, spanning road, rail, air, and maritime modes of transportation.
• Firm-level check sizes reportedly run from roughly $250,000 to $5 million, across pre-seed, seed, Series A, and Series B rounds.
• Sector interests include mobility and transportation, logistics and supply-chain transformation, autonomous and electric vehicles, EV charging infrastructure, robotics, AI/automation, digital infrastructure, and enterprise software.
• The firm frames its edge as a "deep, strategic focus with an actionable network" — pairing capital with a network of mobility and industrial operators to help portfolio companies scale globally (per co-founder William C. Ford Jr.).
• Laura's specific contribution is on the financial and operational side: strong financial reporting, governance, and transaction/diligence rigor — an asset for portfolio companies navigating fundraising, M&A, and financial controls.