November 2024 Newsletter
The latest from Garuda Ventures, new investments, news from our portfolio, 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.
New Investments: We partnered with two founding teams this past quarter (both still unannounced):
💰 Financial ledger and operations software for healthcare practices, beginning with dental providers
🎮 AI agent auth and tool-calling platform, making it easy for developers to build AI agents that actually “do”, not just “read”.
🧱 Brick by Brick: We’ve published ten episodes of our podcast, Brick by Brick. Recent episodes feature Mike Smith, the former COO at StitchFix, Uma Chingunde, Engineering Leader at Render and Stripe, and Justin Roberts, the first sales leader at Box. Take a listen and let us know who else we should be talking to!
✈️ On the Road: The last few months had us on the road! Team Garuda was in New York for the NYC Summit and the EMC Summit, Las Vegas for Black Hat, San Diego for Stocktoberfest, and Boulder and Atlanta with founders. And the rest of the year we’re not slowing down!
🤝 Events:
How to Raise your Series A: Together with our friends Sarah and Somrat at Recall Capital, we hosted an event to kick off the Fall alongside founders, food and drink, to discuss how to “cross the Series A chasm”. Rishi moderated a panel discussion with some close friends and active Series A investors, Anish Acharya at Andreessen Horowitz, Sara Ittelson at Accel, and Alex Niehenke at Scale Venture Partners to get their thoughts on the market today. Take a look at our blog post for insights from the panel
SF Tech Week: We also partnered with our friends at NextView Ventures during SF Tech Week in October to host a networking lunch & learn featuring early stage AI founders, featuring Steph Soderborg, COO/Co-Founder of our portfolio company Naro. Check out the key takeaways and lessons here
Portfolio News
Airbase, the corporate spend management platform, was acquired by Paylocity for ~$325 million. We are grateful to have been on the journey since Day 1. Congrats to our good friend Thejo Kote and the Airbase team!
APMC, a video streaming infrastructure platform, officially launched Victory+, a free, ad-supported sports streaming service that is now the home of the Dallas Stars and Anaheim Ducks teams, with more on the way.
Leap Energy, unlocking access to energy markets with the leading virtual power plant (VPP) platform, announced significant growth in its energy storage vertical through new partnerships with Channing St. Copper, Elexity and FranklinWH, alongside expanded partnerships with sonnen and Energy Toolbase
Starlight, an easier way to access government benefits, announced its partnership with GHS Federal Credit Union. GHS serves more than 20,000 members in New York’s Broome, Chenango, or Tioga counties. By deploying Starlight’s embedded platform, GHS FCU will help its members access government benefits including cost of food, healthcare, childcare, utilities, tax credits, and unemployment insurance
Subcity, which helps American manufacturers uncover overlooked tax benefits and incentives, was acquired by Engineered Tax Services. Congratulations to our good friend Alex White and team!
Hiring Across the Portfolio
The Garuda Ventures portfolio is always hiring! If you’re in the market for an exciting new role at an early-stage business, head to jobs.garuda.vc or click the button below to discover opportunities across our network of 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?” In this month’s bookshelf:
Non-fiction: Leadership: In Turbulent Times, by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin is an incredible read by an author who clearly loves her subjects. A study of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson, she compares and contrasts these Presidents and their leadership styles, particularly how their lives and philosophies shaped the decisions and actions they took during their time in office. It is an informative and well-written look at the characteristics that define leadership.
Fiction: Slow Horses by Mick Herron
Slow Horses by Mick Herron introduces readers to a unique world of British espionage. But instead of focusing on 007-types, the protagonists are a group of MI5 misfits relegated to Slough House. The team must confront a kidnapping that challenges their ineptitude and offers a chance for redemption. It’s a fresh take on the spy genre while exploring themes of failure and ambition among its colorful characters. Highly recommend you read, but in case you’d rather watch, Slow Horses has been turned into an award winning show on Apple TV, and just got renewed for a fifth season.
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.