When I was 16, my buddies and I started a Guns N’ Roses cover band. It was hard work, but the nights when everything came together on stage were magic. It takes guts to get on stage and to perform in front of a live audience. A faulty mic or screeching feedback can throw you off, but you roll with the punches.
Sadly this photo never made it on an album cover.
I hear similar stories of sacrifice, and fun, from the successful early-stage tech businesses we back. At CRV, my focus is on high-growth companies in vertical AI, enterprise software and infrastructure. When I meet a founding team in those spaces, where each person is the best at what they do and everyone is truly committed to a vision, I feel the same adrenaline rush you get on stage.
You just know you’re on to something big... that you’ve met a team that can’t be stopped.
Photobombing Datadog's IPO shot.
When you see something special, it moves you. The first time I saw Datadog’s product, before I invested in their seed round in 2011, I was blown away. Fast forward, and Datadog is recognized as one of the fastest-growing and most capital-efficient SaaS businesses, with a successful IPO and a market capitalization that today exceeds $82 billion.
With Amit during the announcement of STLabs $49 million seed which CRV co-led.
Now I’m working with Amit Agarwal, Datadog’s former president, for a second time and once again at the idea stage of building an enduring company. In 2026, CRV co-led the seed round for Amit’s new company, STLabs which is an intelligent AI-native service management platform.
It takes guts to leave a stable high-flying company and start something new. Before co-founding Periodic Labs, Liam Fedus was a co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Ekin Dogus Cubuk was heads-down on AI and machine learning at Google DeepMind. Their new startup, Periodic Labs, raised $300 million in seed funding to develop AI scientists alongside top researchers who left Meta, OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
CRV General Partner Veronica Orellana, Me and Alex Arjun Dhillon the Founder of Outtake on Term Sheet Signing Day
I led the $20 million Series A in Outtake - an agentic AI platform that detects, monitors and removes impersonators. VoyageAI, another company where I led the Series A, was successfully acquired by MongoDB. Some of my additional investments include Skild AI (robotics), 7AI (agentic security), as well as Encord and LanceDB (AI data infrastructure).
Big markets, killer teams, but no cover bands - only original artists need apply. If you are putting together that kind of founding crew, let’s talk.