May 2023 Newsletter

The latest from Garuda Ventures, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits!

Welcome to our May newsletter, where we share the latest from us, news from our portfolio, new investments, and a few tidbits.

• New Investments: We partnered with two founding teams this past quarter (each of them is still unannounced, so you’ll just have to wait to hear more!)

  • 🔍 Co-pilot for IT Service Desk teams

  • 📈 AI-driven Sales Enablement

• Garuda Around the US: We found ourselves on a lot of planes this quarter and were able to gather the Garuda community around the country. We have hosted events in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Scottsdale, and Austin in recent months!

  

  Our Indonesia by the Bay event in SF

• Drinks with a VC: Rishi was an invited guest on the Drinks with a VC podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on what we look for in founders, the Garuda founding story, and why Rishi was called “Sir Texts A Lot” in college. Thanks to our friends Vik Lakhwara, Co-founder of Hathi VC, and his co-host, Bree Hanson, Head of Business Development at Burkland Associates, for having him!

• Work at a Garuda Ventures portfolio company: If you’re in the market for an exciting new role at an early-stage business, head to jobs.garuda.vc to discover opportunities across our network of companies.

As always, thank you for your continued support. If you know compelling founders building or exploring opportunities in SaaS, Fintech & Commerce, Infrastructure & Security, or Climate, please send them our way!

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Portfolio News

Airbase, the business spend management platform, launched a new product, Guided Procurement, providing intake functionality for all purchasing. They were also recognized as part of the SMBTech 50

ConductorOne, Identity Security for the Modern Workforce, launched their Access Requests tool, providing self service access requests to employees via Slack or Web catalogue. This gives customers a centralized way to automate access management and provide just-in-time access to critical infrastructure, back office systems, and any business application

Evergrow, the all-in-one platform for clean energy tax credits, announced its $7M second round of financing, led by First Round Capital (we at Garuda are proud to continue to invest behind the company). The company also announced that it now has over $150M worth of clean energy projects on its platform that are expected to come online over the next year

Iconic Air, the emissions intelligence platform for oil and gas, announced Civitas Resources, Colorado's largest pure-play oil and gas producer, adopted Iconic Air's Emissions Intelligence platform to support its operational emission reductions and ESG performance reporting as part of the Civitas’ near-real-time emissions management initiative

Leap, the platform for monetizing distributed energy resources, announced the launch of a new demand response offering in coordination with Resideo Technologies, a leading global provider of solutions for home comfort, security, and safety, for Amazon Smart Thermostat customers in California 

Subcity, building focused financial solutions for small manufacturers, was featured in a top trade publication with a piece called 4 New Laws. 1,388 Amendments. $4.1 Trillion Dollars

To see a complete list of founders and companies we’ve partnered with, visit garuda.vc/companies

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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?” In this month’s bookshelf:

Non-Fiction: The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink

The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink is a quick read on how to harness regret for good. In the venture capital business there can often be feelings of regret, particularly when it comes to missing an investment opportunity. But, as Pink says, “When it comes to regret, a third view is healthier: Feeling is for thinking. Don’t dodge emotions. Don’t wallow in them either. Confront them. Use them as a catalyst for future behavior. If thinking is for doing, feeling can help us think.”

Fiction: Bloodmoney by David Ignatius

We are big fans of spy/covert operations/geo-political thrillers here at Garuda and Bloodmoney fits the bill nicely. Written by David Ignatius, a prize-winning journalist at Washington Post who has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for four decades, Bloodmoney follows a young CIA operative, Sophie Marx, and her search for who has been killing members of a new CIA unit.

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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.