Garuda Ventures

New 🎧 🧱 alert! Our final Brick by Brick episode of the year features my friend Rajneesh C., SVP and Chief Product Officer of Cisco's Security BU. Raj and I met in 2014 when I was new to Silicon Valley and to tech. I was a BD Manager at Okta building our security partner ecosystem from the ground up and he was leading products at a then very nascent Netskope, now worth $7.5B and a juggernaut in cybersecurity. In this episode of Brick by Brick, we talk about: - Platform shifts like on-prem to cloud and now AI, and how transformative they are for startups - Taking a non-traditional route to product leadership from engineering (via M&A/Strategy at Juniper) - The tight relationship between product management and product marketing in enterprise software businesses - When joining a startup is a "no-brainer" (special leader like Sanjay Beri + clear market pull) - How the founding of Netskope was born out of direct conversations with Juniper and Cisco customers telling the founders the future - How he leads teams today - How Cisco is thinking about AI both internally and in its product strategy If you’re interested in how a special enterprise security product leader who has been a leader at all three phases of the tech world - early stage, scale-up, and large incumbent - thinks and leads, this one is for you! Thanks so much for joining Rajneesh C.! Link to the full pod in the comments. #brickbybrick

🚢 Today we're excited to announce our partnership with Sumeet Trehan and Starboard, building AI-native Logistics Solutions for Freight Forwarders. Global trade is a classic $25 trillion example of a massive market that has remained stuck in the analog age. The operational backbone of this vast system—the 80k freight forwarders around the world—remains heavily manual and inefficient. Starboard is building an AI-native platform to empower freight forwarders and redefine global logistics. Their tools streamline operations for freight businesses and encompass essential capabilities. In the hands of a small or medium-sized freight forwarder this feels like the best employee they’ve never had. Starboard has helped to cut operational costs by up to 50% across their early customers. Now, it's is going to take a special kind of founder to disrupt this industry, which is why we were thrilled to partner with Sumeet. He has lived and breathed supply chain and logistics for the last 15 years across Maersk, RIVIGO, BCG, and most recently Flexport, where he served as GM for Canada. His understanding of the nuances of the market, the pain points across each constituent in the industry, and his bold vision for where the industry is heading over the next 10 years is the exact type of powerful combination we look for when we back founders. Arpan Punyani and I feel incredibly fortunate to have met Sumeet earlier this year, helped catalyze the formation of the company, and have Garuda Ventures lead his pre-seed round as the company got off the ground, investing together with our friends Jenny, Scott, and Vir at Everywhere Ventures. Since then the team has made tremendous progress and we are now thrilled to welcome Kaitlyn Glancy and Eclipse - who just led a $4.5M seed round - to team Starboard! Our full blog post here: https://lnkd.in/gtyXz73q Also, Starboard is hiring across a number of roles, so if you are interested in leveraging AI to reimagine logistics and global trade with a scrappy team that moves fast, check out the jobs page here: https://lnkd.in/g7DCc7WS

At SIERRA Ventures, we invest in Seed & Series A. This quarter we hosted our Annual Emerging VC Summit with some incredible pre seed investors. Founders - here are some early-stage (often first check) firms that might not be on your radar and are definitely worth following: 10vc, San Francisco, CA 8-Bit Capital, San Francisco, CA Abstraction Capital, San Francisco, CA Array Ventures, San Francisco, CA Ascend Ventures, Seattle, WA Atria Ventures, San Francisco, CA Beat Ventures, San Francisco, CA Bowery Capital, San Francisco & New York Bridge Venture Fund, Chicago, IL Cofounders Capital, Cary, NC Dispersion Capital, San Francisco, CA E14 Fund, Cambridge, MA eGateway Capital, Columbus, OH Foster Ventures, San Francisco, CA GTM Fund, SF AZ Garuda Ventures, San Francisco, CA Hannah Grey VC, New York & Denver Inner Loop Capital, Baltimore, MD Leadout Capital, Portola Valley, CA Looking Glass Capital, New York, NY Matchstick Ventures, Minneapolis MN & Boulder CO Motivate Venture Capital, Chicago, IL Necessary Ventures, San Francisco, CA NewBuild Venture Capital VC, San Francisco, CA One Way Ventures, Boston, MA Pack Ventures, San Francisco, CA Position Ventures, San Francisco, CA Rackhouse Venture Capital, San Francisco, CA Range Ventures, Denver, CO Recall Capital, San Francisco, CA Redbud VC, Columbia, MO Refinery Ventures, Cincinnati, OH Schematic Ventures, San Francisco, CA Service Provider Capital, Denver, CO Sure Ventures, San Francisco, CA Surface Ventures, New York, NY Tau Ventures, Palo Alto, CA Tech Square Ventures, ATL Tokyo Black, San Francisco Twin Ventures, San Francisco, CA Vela Partners, San Francisco, CA Zelda Ventures, San Francisco, CA Added: HCVC, Redwood City, CA, Nomad Ventures, SF/LA mu ventures, NYC  Ripple Ventures, Toronto Enigma Venture Partners, Toronto Fairbridge, NYC Beyond Genius Ventures AZ-VC Ag Startup Engine, Chicago IL Drive Capital, Columbus, OH Bee Partners, SF ResilienceVC Champion Venture Partners, LA Reach Capital, SF Coyote Capital, SF Lombard Street Ventures, Menlo Park Convoi Ventures, SLC UT focal, SF CA Park Rangers Capital Meridian Ventures LOI Venture Tundra Ventures ATX Venture Partners Enigma Venture Partners Tenzing.vc Northside Ventures VC 414, Milwaukee, WI Antler, NYC & Austin Xcellerant Ventures, AZ Cerulean Ventures (climate fund) Companyon Ventures in Boston & NY Avalanche, Austin What did I miss or get wrong 🙃?

It takes a village to raise a child. The same can be said for building a venture fund! Last week Arpan and I we were thrilled to host another unforgettable Garuda Ventures Fall Fête, bringing together some of the remarkable members of our community who inspire and propel us forward. We were so glad to able to celebrate some of the founders, LPs, co-investors, operators, friends, and family who make Garuda possible, and thank them for helping us do this job we love. We're incredibly grateful incredibly grateful for your continued support and enthusiasm as we build the firm, brick by brick. A huge thank you to our partners ArentFox Schiff, Citizens Private Bank, Cooley LLP, Sydecar and Burkland for helping make the night such a success! #garduaventures #brickbybrick

Check out the latest news from us here Garuda Ventures and our portfolio companies, in our November Newsletter! (Link in first comment) New Investments: 💰 Financial ledger and operations software for healthcare practices, beginning with dental providers 🎮 AI agent auth and tool-calling platform, making it easy for developers to build AI agents that actually “do”, not just “read”. 🧱 Brick by Brick: We’ve published our 10th episode of our podcast Brick by Brick! Recent episodes feature Mike Smith, the former COO at StitchFix, Uma Chingunde, Engineering Leader at Render and Stripe, and Justin Roberts, the first sales leader at Box. Take a listen and let us know who else we should be talking to! ✈️ On the Road: The last few months had us on the road! Team Garuda was in New York for the NYC Summit and the EMC Summit, Las Vegas for Black Hat, San Diego for Stocktoberfest, and Boulder and Atlanta with founders. 🤝 Events: How to Raise your Series A: Together with our friends Sarah Tierney Niyogi and Somrat Niyogi at Recall Capital, we hosted an event to kick off the Fall alongside founders, food and drink, to discuss how to “cross the Series A chasm”. Rishi moderated a panel discussion with some close friends and active Series A investors, Anish Acharya at Andreessen Horowitz, Sara Ittelson at Accel, and Alexander Niehenke at Scale Venture Partners to get their thoughts on the market today. Take a look at our blog post for insights from the panel SF Tech Week: We also partnered with our friends at NextView Ventures during #SFTechWeek in October to host a networking lunch & learn featuring early stage AI founders, featuring Stephanie Soderborg, COO/Co-Founder of our portfolio company Naro. Portfolio news: Exciting updates including M&A, launches, and milestones from portfolio companies Airbase A Parent Media Co. Inc. (APMC) Leap Starlight Subcity Click the link to the newsletter in the comments below to learn more!

The RAISE Global conference last week brought a number of LPs and GPs into town. As Arpan and I brainstormed how we might gather a small group of friends for engaging conversation and appropriate amounts of caffeine to make it through the event, the answer became clear: latte art class! Our goals for the event were certainly accomplished and, judging by some of the impressive hearts and flowers, more than a few folks have some barista side hustle opportunities! Some fun coffee facts (at least based on the 20 attendees): - Average number of cups of coffee per day: GPs: 3 vs. LPs: 2 (feels right…😄) - Most popular coffee drink: Lattes followed in close second by black coffee Thanks to everyone who could make it, and special shoutout to Kashish and the Aura Tea & Coffee team for showing us how to properly steam, swirl and pour!

From my recent chat on Garuda Ventures Brick by Brick, with seasoned engineering leader Uma Chingunde (former Stripe Render VMware), listen to her share the virtues of founders balancing their teams with both experienced operators and first-time folks - to capture both the unbridled optimism needed to make startups work, and "speed running" the mistakes that seasoned folks have seen and can avoid:

Let’s go!!

Check out the newest episode of our Brick by Brick podcast Garuda Ventures, with the amazing Uma Chingunde as our guest! (Links to episode in comments below) I had the pleasure of getting to know Uma through First Round Capital's amazing Angel Track program (h/t Brett Berson and everyone at FRC!), and through another mutual friend and founder, Kintan Brahmbhatt. Uma has had an awesome journey as an engineering leader at top companies such as VMware Stripe and Render, and has lived through life at big companies, hypergrowth, and the pre-PMF stage as well. She is such a genuine, thoughtful person, and you can tell she is cool under fire. In our chat we cover topics like: ✅ How an engineering leader should calmly lead and manage through a service outage ✅ Why and how great founders balance teams with both less experience and more experience ✅ Lessons from Stripe's hypergrowth period including a culture of "and" not "or" ✅ How to stand out in engineering interviews And lots more. Please check it out and enjoy! #brickbybrick #garudaventures

Last week Arpan and I, together with our friends Sarah and Somrat at Recall Capital, hosted an event to kick off the Fall alongside founders, food and drink. I had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion with some close friends and active Series A investors, Anish Acharya at Andreessen Horowitz, Sara Ittelson at Accel, and Alexander Niehenke at Scale Venture Partners to get their thoughts on the market today and how founders should look to "cross the Series A chasm". Some key takeaways from our discussion for founders out there: - 📈 There is optimism in the market: It's not all doom and gloom, good deals are still getting funded, everyone is excited about what products are being built. The big question for investors is opportunity cost - 🤝 Build relationships early: If you can, choose three to five investors you would be thrilled to have lead the round and, assuming mutual interest, get to know them over time - 🤑 The “texture” of the numbers matter more than the numbers themselves: How you articulate your numbers and their quality to help investors appreciate what they represent about the potential of your business is critical - 🤖 It’s not all AI, but you should be talking about it: You don't need to be AI-native to get funded, but you need to know how AI will impact your business and market For a full recap on what it takes to raise your A, including a few tips on how to run better process, click the link below!