Madrona Venture Group

01/05/2024

Gen-native vs. gen-enhanced — who will win? During our last year, Google Cloud VP James Phillips joined other industry experts to discuss how the landscape will evolve. Will the incumbents that incorporate into their offerings win — or will the winners be those building with AI from the ground up?

Listen to the full discussion to see what James, Abhay Parasnis, Vijaye Raji, Adam Caplan, & Mark T. Nelson think here: https://bit.ly/3TCoSjR

01/03/2024

Advice from Operating Partner Anna Baird: Founders — don't change strategy every quarter! AND - focus your messaging on the pain you are solving for your customers - they don't care about your mission!

Listen to her full conversation with Managing Director Karan Mehandru here: https://bit.ly/49z1mtA

Other truths from Anna:
💡Sell with customers, not to customers.
💡You have to say no to some things — so you can have maniacal focus.
💡Always stay close to the customer.
💡Control what you can control — what you build. Don’t get distracted by the noise.
💡Fear is a tactic, not a strategy.
💡Don’t ever stop doing customer meetings – that is how you stay in touch with what is happening in the market.

12/18/2023

Did you catch the latest Founded & Funded w/ Madrona's Tim Porter? In this Investor Spotlight, he dishes about his path to , what he looks for in a , the importance of customer focus, and the high priority he places on integrity.

Watch the full episode here: https://bit.ly/3t62yEq

12/15/2023

Molham Aref recently reflected on the early days of RelationalAI and the founder/investor relationship in an interview with Madrona.

"From the moment Bob Muglia introduced me to S. Somasegar, he was there helping us, introducing us to potential customers and partners without any conditions. … The Madrona team really is a team — they all look out for all portfolio companies," Molham shared.

Read the whole Q&A here:

"From the moment Bob Muglia introduced me to Soma, he was there helping us, introducing us to potential customers and partners without any conditions."

12/14/2023

Today we are excited to announce our investment in Lassen Peak. The company is bringing ultra high speed wireless technology to a handheld device that enables touchless concealed weapons searches. Read more here from Tim Porter and Patrick Ennis.

Four years ago, Hatch Graham, the co-founder and CEO of Lassen Peak, captivated Patrick and Tim with the audacious vision he painted to apply a ...

12/13/2023

In this week's Founded & Funded, hear from Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter as he discusses his path to by way of mechanical engineering and Microsoft. He shares invaluable insights about what he looks for in a founder, the importance of customer focus, and the high priority he places on integrity. Tim also shares Madrona's core principles, his favorite books for entrepreneurs, and his personal interests outside of work. This chat is a must-watch for aspiring entrepreneurs looking for insights into the world or strategies to capture an investor's eye.

Watch Tim's Investor Spotlight here: https://bit.ly/3t62yEq

12/12/2023

Take it from Cramer - Seattle is the epicenter of AI! Great to have this national recognition for the work that has been happening here for over a decade!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD5_y57gJnc Just a few months after it looked like Seattle was being left out of the national conversation about

12/07/2023

We are excited to announce Madrona's investment in Vetri Vellore's new company, Rhythms, a first-of-its-kind AI-powered operating system. Soma has known Vetri for over 25 years, starting when they worked together at Microsoft. He's followed Vetri's journey as he built his first company, Chronus, and later, Madrona invested in his second company, Ally, which Microsoft acquired in 2021. Over the years, we at Madrona have developed a deep respect and admiration for Vetri as a customer-oriented founder and brilliant technologist.

Rhythms helps organizations understand, streamline, and improve their “rhythms” or ways of working, with the goal of understanding the behavior of each individual and team within a company. It enables every enterprise to analyze information across diverse applications and document sources to detect reoccurring habits of top-performing teams, so every team in an organization can personalize and adopt them.

We are thrilled to partner with Vetri on this venture — and it is a pleasure to co-lead this investment along with Greenoaks / Neil Shah. Other investors include: Accel, Cercano, and Founders Co-op.

We are excited to announce Madrona's investment in Vetri Vellore's new company, Rhythms, a first-of-its-king AI-powered operating system.

12/04/2023

In our most recent episode of 🎙️ Founded & Funded 🎙️ Madrona General Counsel Joanna Lin Black explains that the fundamental role of a startup board is oversight, but that role changes over time!!

Joanna and Madrona Investor S. Somasegar dive into the importance of founders aligning strategic views with board members, how to manage disagreements, the intricacies of board structure at different stages, the need for transparency — both in sharing good and bad news — and so much more.

Listen here: https://bit.ly/3RjUCbM
Watch here: https://bit.ly/3TdllIv

11/29/2023

🎙️ Founded & Funded drop🎙️ Madrona Investor S. Somasegar and General Counsel Joanna Lin Black discuss the fundamental role of a board in a startup’s growth and development with Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken. They touch on the importance of aligning strategic views with board members, managing disagreements, and effective board governance to ensure that the organization is run efficiently. These two offer numerous insights into the intricacies of board structure at different stages of a startup lifecycle, drawing parallels from recent events at OpenAI. The conversation covers the need for transparency, both in sharing good and bad news, the necessity for a functional board reflecting a functional culture, and more.

Listen here: https://bit.ly/47AxdZr
Watch here: https://youtu.be/eNlWsSegjTA

Managing Director S. Somasegar and General Counsel Joanna Black discuss startup board governance and the role of a board in a startup's growth.

11/20/2023

It is ok to fail. Accept it and move on! That's one founder/entrepreneur truth Anna Baird shared during her conversation with Karan Mehandru on Founded & Funded!

Other truths:
💡Sell with customers, not to customers.
💡You have to say no to some things — so you can have maniacal focus.
💡Always stay close to the customer.
💡Control what you can control — what you build. Don’t get distracted by the noise.
💡Fear is a tactic, not a strategy.
💡Don’t ever stop doing customer meetings – that is how you stay in touch with what is happening in the market.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: https://bit.ly/49z1mtA