David Rolf, head at Visa Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.

“Every startup is in some way a bet on a particular future,” says David Rolf, who joined Visa in 2018 and became head of the payment company’s ventures unit in 2022.

One such example is Visa Ventures’ 2022 investment in Sardine, a device intelligence platform providing risk and fraud infrastructure for the online economy. While transaction fraud and account opening fraud were historically monitored separately by many retailers and financial providers, Sardine was a forerunner in pinpointing connections between the two. The Visa Ventures team has enjoyed its role as an enabler in supporting Sardine as it builds a successful, rapidly growing business, while reducing fraud and enabling sound commerce.

“Every startup is in some way a bet on a particular future.”

Rolf oversees a team that sits across San Francisco, London, Dubai and Singapore, making on average some 6-10 investment venture deals a year. In managing the team, David focuses on supporting independence by making sure goals are clear and that “everybody understands what type of companies we are looking for, how we want to partner with those companies as investors, and then really encourage people to go to work.” Everyone on the team sources deals, with more senior individuals acting as deal leads, guiding the opportunity through the diligence process, investment council and side letter conversations.

In the past 18 months the unit’s focus has expanded to look for startups that may be important to Visa and commerce whether or not an immediate commercial partnership opportunity exists.

In line with the $100m generative AI fund launched in 2023, Visa is looking towards investments in agentic commerce, whereby generative AI agents are able to buy and sell. “A lot of people have spent the past decade trying to keep non-human actors from transacting, because the presumption was that they were fraudulent. We are now rapidly moving toward a world where non-human actors are not fraudulent and, in fact, are authorised by people to go off and do things on their behalf,” says Rolf.

Visa Ventures is also exploring ways in which software can simplify corporate payment processes including accounts payable, treasury management, and accounts receivable.


The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.

These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.

See the full 2025 Powerlist here.