Menlo Ventures

1) Find a founder with a big vision for how novel technology can tackle a massive opportunity. ***Bonus points if they bring good luck to our hometown heroes, the Golden State Warriors*** Jeevan Kalanithi checks both boxes. He founded @OpenSpace in 2017, pioneering AI-powered reality capture to revolutionize construction. By making site documentation effortless, OpenSpace was ahead of the curve in embracing AI to transform the industry. Shawn Carolan?first invested in 2020, and it’s been incredible to watch OpenSpace shape the future of construction as their business grows. We’re proud to be on this journey with Jeevan and huge fans of the company he’s building. (Go Dubs!)

Google's historic $33B acquisition of Wiz reinforces a pattern we've observed across cybersecurity: major platform shifts create new market leaders. With AI representing the next critical inflection point, our cybersecurity team has identified which security markets are positioned to break $10B and which could scale beyond $100B. Read our full analysis here: https://lnkd.in/gZeAQXXX cc Venky Ganesan, Rama Sekhar, Feyza Haskaraman, Samantha Borja

In a year where companies are finding meaningful new applications for AI, Pinecone is recognized among Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2025! Their vector database is the backbone of modern AI applications worldwide. Congratulations to Edo Liberty and the entire team! Full list here: https://lnkd.in/gDVfiWxS

We're excited to announce our investment in Graphite, the AI-powered code review platform revolutionizing how engineering teams ship quality code. By combining stacked pull requests with AI review capabilities powered by Anthropic's Claude, Graphite is eliminating bottlenecks in the development process. Companies like Shopify, Ramp, and Notion are already seeing the benefits. Read more about why we're excited to back founders?Merrill Lutsky, Greg Foster, and Tomas Reimers: https://mnlo.vc/graphite

Our partner Tim Tully discusses the unprecedented compensation packages for AI research scientists, noting stock grants at Series D startups can reach $2-4 million—'unfathomable' compared to just four years ago. Full Fortune article by Sharon Goldman:?https://lnkd.in/gr9iT94m

Pinecone continues strengthening its position in the vector database space with its latest advancements! Their newly announced architecture optimizations for agent-based systems represent a significant step forward for the industry. Read the blog by Edo Liberty and Nathan Cordeiro for more.

Congratulations to Tiffany Lopinsky, co-founder and President of ShopMy, on being recognized among the most dynamic women in business. Tiffany’s visionary leadership has been instrumental in transforming the influencer marketing landscape. Under her guidance, ShopMy has grown its network to over 40,000 creators and 300 brand partners, including renowned brands like Tatcha, Dior, and Elemis. Partnering with such an innovative leader is truly inspiring, and we look forward to celebrating her continued success.

Menlo Ventures is leading the $23M seed round in Good Job Games alongside Akin Babayigit’s Arcadia Gaming Partners and I’m thrilled to join the board. Co-founders Ilker Ilicali & Nazim Akmandil (so private they don’t have LinkedIn accounts) bootstrapped the mobile games company for 8 years, building a hypercasual studio that reached 2B+ players before launching and scaling MatchVillains— a match-3 game with the genre’s highest retention rates. This team is obsessed with product innovation and craftsmanship. Come challenge Shawn Carolan and me on the MatchVillains leaderboards! More on why we invested: ????? ?? https://mnlo.vc/GJGseed Dean Takahashi on the raise: ?? https://lnkd.in/e4VVC74i

?? Introducing ??????????: The Future of Security Operations We’re thrilled to introduce ??????????, the cybersecurity risk management company redefining how security teams combat cyber threats. TechCrunch’s Ingrid Lunden covered our launch! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gKHsKPqF Why Crogl? Security teams are overwhelmed with alerts, yet traditional automation only scratches the surface. Crogl changes that: ? 4,500+ alerts per day – Traditional automation handles only a fraction of them. ? AI-driven knowledge engine – Learns from your security processes, making junior analysts as effective as senior experts. ? Fully customer-managed – No black-box AI, no external SaaS risk—just full control over your security operations. $30M in Funding to Fuel Our Mission We’re excited to announce $30M in funding from Menlo Ventures and Tola Capital to accelerate our vision. As Tim Tully from Menlo Ventures put it: “Crogl is a true force multiplier—an AI system that learns, adapts, and operates with the collective intelligence of an entire SOC.” This is the future of security operations. Learn more: https://www.crogl.com #CyberSecurity #AI #SOC #RiskManagement #Crogl Sheila Gulati Tola Capital, Tim Tully Menlo Ventures, Akshay Bhushan S3