Karan Mehandru joins Madrona as CEO
Seasoned venture investor and operations leader joins Madrona as CEO, expanding full-stack venture capabilities to partner with founders across all stages; Company opens office in Silicon Valley
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Madrona Venture Group announced today that Karan Mehandru is joining the firm’s investment team as a Managing Director. With fifteen years of experience as a venture investor and board member of rapidly scaling private businesses, Karan brings a wealth of experience working closely with entrepreneurs, their teams and partners to build lasting and exceptional companies. This full-stack approach at all stages of the company’s growth reflects Madrona’s venture investment philosophy.
“We have worked closely with Karan for over a decade and have been consistently impressed with how he earns the trust of founders and takes a hands-on approach to working with early-stage companies,” said Madrona CEO Matt McIlwain. “He is a dynamic, creative problem solver who brings a full-stack approach, including expertise in company building, long-term capital allocation, exceptional corporate commitment and overall good judgment. We are excited to have him join the Madrona team to invest in companies from seed to acceleration stage and support our existing companies.”
“When the team at Madrona approached me, I was immediately fascinated. I had actively worked with several of the team on various boards, lived in the Pacific Northwest for over a decade, and frequently traveled to the area to witness the growth of the Seattle startup community and the growing footprint of the firm. And I felt the respect the firm had with entrepreneurs and investors alike, said Karan. “Our goals are aligned to build on the firm’s incredible success while remaining true to the values of bringing curiosity, integrity and a pursuit of excellence to every interaction.”
Karan will be based in Silicon Valley, opening a Madrona office in Palo Alto to expand the firm’s Bay Area network and team while bringing a deep understanding of Seattle innovation closer to that market.
“Madrona’s ability to help companies grow has extended beyond the PNW for years, including investments in Snowflake, UiPath, Coda, Clari and CommerceIQ; and especially as the firm has raised specific funds to help businesses based anywhere accelerate beyond product-market fit. The presence in the Valley will be valuable to incumbents and entrepreneurs building companies at any stage in intelligent applications, enterprise, marketplaces, data infrastructure and more,” said Madrona CEO S. (Soma) Somasegar.
“The Seattle mindset is different. It’s as ambitious as the valley and brings with it a focus on long-term, non-giant investments, along with deep expertise in building companies that operate in the cloud and with AI/ML. I am excited to partner with the team in Seattle and look forward to bringing an empathetic and ambitious mindset to our work in the Valley and beyond,” said Karan.
Immediately prior to Madrona, Mehandru led the venture capital practice at STEADFAST Capital, where he focused on AI, enterprise software, the future of work, fintech and related sectors. He led acceleration stage investments in, and partnered with, exceptional companies such as Zapier, Klaviyo, Jumpcloud, Algolia, LucidChart, Sendbird, Wealthsimple, Pipefy and others. Prior to Steadfast, Mehandru spent more than a decade at Trinity Ventures investing in early and accelerator stage founders and teams, including Auth0 (acquired by OKTA), Outreach and Cohesity, which together have a current + exit value of over $10 billion. Other companies he invested in at Trinity include Madrona portfolio companies, CommerceIQ and Jama Software. For a complete list of Karan’s investments – (
Karan started his venture career at Scale Venture Partners, working with mid-market companies. Prior to that, he worked in operational roles across product development, marketing and sales for startups and established technology companies.
More here (link to bio)
The Madrona team is currently investing from Fund 8 and Acceleration Fund 2, announced in early 2020. Fund 8 focuses primarily on Seed and Series A companies based in the Pacific Northwest. The Acceleration Fund focuses on Series B stage companies and beyond anywhere in North America with an emphasis on intelligent applications leveraging applied AI/ML and cloud computing. The firm has invested in companies based in Utah, California, Ohio and elsewhere over the past few years with its accelerator fund strategy.
Karan joins a growing investment team that has added seven new investors to the group over the past two and a half years.
About Madrona
Madrona (www.madrona.com) is a venture capital firm based in Seattle, WA. With more than 25 years of investing in early-stage technology companies, the firm has worked with entrepreneurs from day one to help build their company for the long term. Madrona invests primarily in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum and in accelerator companies that build intelligent applications. Madrona manages over $2.4 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon, Smartsheet, Rover, Nautilus, Redfin and Snowflake.
Contacts
Erika Shaffer, [email protected]206-972-5514
