May 2022 Newsletter
May 2022 Newsletter
The latest from Garuda, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits!
Welcome to the Garuda Ventures newsletter, where we share the latest from us, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits.
2022 has already been a milestone year for us at Garuda — and it’s only May!
Welcome Arpan: We marked our transition from a part-time vehicle to a full-time fund, and were thrilled to officially announce Arpan as a Co-founder and General Partner after his amazing eight years helping grow Okta from an early-stage startup into a publicly traded, globally recognized enterprise cloud business
Team Garuda: Arpan Punyani, James Richards, and Rishi Taparia New Investments: We partnered with four founding teams this quarter, taking the total number of companies we’ve backed to 36
New Look: We completed our rebrand and website refresh, sharing more of our origin story and the founders we have had the good fortune to partner with
Storytelling: Arpan started writing his own blog, sharing some of the many lessons and learnings while helping grow Okta (NB: for more on the Okta journey, check out Okta Co-Founder and COO Frederic Kerrest’s new book Zero to IPO). And Rishi is in the fifth year of his newsletter, Tippets By Taps, where he recently started an interview series, Taproom, introducing readers to accomplished leaders and builders across industries
As always, thank you for your continued support. If you know compelling founders building or exploring B2B opportunities in SaaS/APIs, Fintech/Commerce, Infrastructure/Security, or Climate, please send them our way!
Portfolio News
Evergrow, the carbon project finance platform, announced their $7M Seed round
First Resonance, the factory operating system for next-generation manufacturing, announced their $14M Series A and was part of 60 Minutes’ coverage on eVTOLs
Offsight, the platform for offsite construction management, partnered with Z Modular across all their factories
Stax by Hover, a universal money app for Africa that works without using mobile data, has partnered with Money Africa, a financial literacy community, to bring personal finance tips to its users
Subcity, helping manufacturers discover, claim and collect incentives and tax credits, came out of stealth having helped a California manufacturing client secure a $10M tax credit
To see a complete list of founders and companies we’ve partnered with, visit garuda.vc/companies
Garuda’s Bookshelf
In a world of bite-sized, easily consumable content, we love asking and getting the question, “Have you read any good books lately?” We are excited to introduce ‘Garuda’s Bookshelf’, our recommendations for a piece of fiction and nonfiction.
Fiction: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson
Set in the near future when the world begins to feel the true impact of the climate crisis, it describes the various ways the global community tries to avert major planetary disaster.
Non-Fiction: The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future by Sebastian Mallaby
An insightful read on the history and rise of venture capital as an asset class. Especially interesting given today’s macroeconomic climate.
Garuda Ventures is a B2B-focused, pre-seed and seed-stage venture firm. Subscribe below to get the latest from us, and visit garuda.vc to learn more.