SIERRA Ventures

Thank you, Nasdaq! ?? Learn all about our big news here: https://hubs.la/Q02YT46k0

As Pete DeJoy shares with SiliconANGLE & theCUBE at the NYSE, AI outcomes aren't constrained by how fast you can prototype. Truly differentiated AI results are determined by two key questions: ?? Are you solving high-context problems that are strategic to your business outcome? ?? Do you have access to domain-specific and trustworthy data? For example, Ford Motor Company is using Astro and Apache Airflow to train their Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), orchestrating diverse, compute-intensive pipelines and processing terabyte-scale daily data from lidar, radar and video. Click here to learn more about Ford's use of Astro and Airflow for ADAS: https://bit.ly/3CPEdHi

At SIERRA Ventures, we hosted our Annual Emerging VC Summit. 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 ???

Excited for Spectro Cloud to power up for the next phase of its already supercharged growth. SIERRA Ventures led their seed round 5 years ago at the start of this journey. So proud to work with founders Tenry Fu, Saad Malik, and Gautam Joshi as well as our co-investors Ed Sim (boldstart ventures), Gaurav Manglik (WestWave Capital), and Ken Fox (Stripes ). Welcome to the board, Michael Reilly (Goldman Sachs)!

Congratulations to Tenry Fu, Saad Malik, Gautam Joshi and the Spectro Cloud team on their $75M Series C led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs. Spectro Cloud is a leader in modern multi-cluster Kubernetes management at scale across a variety of deployment environments, including on-premises hardware, single and multi-cloud, and the edge. Mark Fernandes at SIERRA led the Seed back in 2019. Over the past couple of years, Spectro is seeing strong tailwinds:? - K8s is now mature and multi-cluster management at scale is a massive problem? - AI is driving the adoption of bare metal K8s in the data center and at the edge - VMware’s acquisition by Broadcom is causing enterprises to look for alternatives - The public sector is rapidly adopting K8s (even faster than commercial) These factors have led to strong revenue traction and Spectro’s dominant position in this huge market. We’re excited that Michael Reilly from Goldman shares Tenry’s vision for building a foundational infrastructure company and led a $75M Series C round. Read more about Spectro Cloud and SIERRA's partnership from Seed to Series C: https://lnkd.in/gmDNV4j9

Dhiren Bhatia sold his last company to pharmaceutical giant Roche and is now back to building his Seed stage startup, Inventive AI. So how does an exited founder think about culture the second time around? ?? Building a team that resonates with the company’s mission is crucial for success. Dhiren shares his approach to hiring individuals who possess the technical skills needed and align with the company’s values and vision. This creates a unified, goal-oriented team that works well together and stays committed to the startup’s long-term success. ?? Create a “casually intense” work culture where there is a balance between a relaxed atmosphere and a driven, high-performance mindset. He believes that creating a flexible environment allows employees to work at their best without feeling burnt out while also focusing on achieving ambitious goals. This balance, he argues, is key to sustaining motivation and productivity. Read more about the interview on the ASCEND: https://lnkd.in/gkucuK48

Excited to announce the drop of Episode 11! Arvind Ayyala and I had a great time talking to Ankit Jain the #CEO Infinitus Systems, Inc. We had a chance to go deep into Infinitus' success as an AI provider in healthcare. Ankit also shared a lot of practical advice on pricing, hiring and selling to win in this space. Please listen and subscribe! Also a big congrats to the entire Infinitus Systems, Inc. team for announcing their Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz! https://lnkd.in/gFZCr5bx Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gS4-xBfB Apple: https://lnkd.in/gzKchkNp Substack: https://lnkd.in/gcf_knKF

This month,?Enterprise Singapore?gathered 20,000+ global innovators for SWITCH 2024. SIERRA's Ben Y. joined the stage with Vishal Harnal at 500 Global, Kee Lock Chua at Vertex Ventures, and Steven Chia at CNA. They discussed their perspectives on the global tech landscape, emerging areas of technology to watch, and balancing the hype around new technologies. SIERRA is excited to continue investing in the innovation growing out of this region.

SIERRA wrapped up our 2nd Annual Emerging VC Summit this week. This is a fun event that brings GPs from all across the country to the Bay Area to spend the day learning, wine tasting, and, most importantly, networking. This year, we had over 40 firms represented. Big thanks to?Churchill Asset Management,?Top Tier Capital Partners,?and Next Legacy Partners?for sharing advice in the venture fundraising market. Thanks to all that came out, and we look forward to more events with this community in 2025.

SIERRA wrapped up our 2nd Annual Emerging VC Summit this week. This is a fun event that brings GPs from all across the country to the Bay Area to spend the day learning, wine tasting, and, most importantly, networking. This year, we had over 40 firms represented. Big thanks to?Churchill Asset Management,?Top Tier Capital Partners,?and Next Legacy Partners?for sharing advice in the venture fundraising market. Thanks to all that came out, and we look forward to more events with this community in 2025.