Founded & Funded
Business & Finance
About
Listen to conversations between Madrona investors and entrepreneurs, founders, and startup personalities who talk about some of the key moments in building a company. Designed to give would-be founders and others interested in working with or for startups a view into the struggle and the lessons learned, these conversations are informal and informative. With more than 25 years of investing in early-stage technology companies, Madrona has worked with founders from day one to help build their company for the long run. We invest in seed and Series A companies in the Pacific Northwest building across the information technology spectrum and in Acceleration (B and beyond) stage companies building with AI, regardless of geography.
Episodes
- AGI Needs Formal Reasoning. Carina Hong is Building it at Axiom.
There's a theorem being tested about how AI reaches general intelligence. Carina Hong's answer: through mathematics. Carina is the founder of Axiom, and in less than a year of building, her team's AI has scored a perfect 120/120 on the Put…
- Palantir Alum Explains How AI is Used and Bought by the Federal Government
Nick LaRovere spent years at Palantir before co-founding Pryzm with friends, including a Lockheed Martin alum. And in this episode of Founded & Funded, Nick shares his inside account of how AI is actually being adopted inside the federal g…
- Zapier Has More AI Agents Than Employees. Here's How That Happened
Zapier is doing hundreds of millions in ARR, has 800 employees, and has more AI agents than people. That ratio isn't an accident. Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier, built one of the most capital-efficient software companies in hist…
- Twitter's Ex-CEO: The Web Was Built for Humans — Let's Make it Work for AI Agents
What happens when AI agents — not humans — become your primary customer? That's not a hypothetical. It's already happening, and the founders who recognize it earliest are rebuilding their entire infrastructure stacks from scratch. In this…
- How to Sell AI Into the Enterprise: Pilots, Pricing, and Closing 12-Month Deals
What does it really take to sell an AI-native product into the Fortune 500? In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain sits down with two founders deep in the trenches of enterprise AI adoption, Esha Joshi…
- The Infrastructure of Intelligence: Inside Crusoe's Massive AI Factory in Texas
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Ben Gilbert, co-host of the Acquired podcast, sits down with Chase Lochmiller, co-founder and CEO of Crusoe-AI, the company building what it calls AI factories, including its massive campus in Abilene,…
- Can We Trust AI? The Future of Verified Reasoning in High-Stakes Systems
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow hosts a live conversation with Carina Hong, Founder & CEO of Axiom, and Byron Cook, VP & Distinguished Scientist at AWS. Carina is building foundation models trained on verifie…
- Microsoft's Agent Factory: The Future of AI Software with EVP of Core AI Jay Parikh
In this live episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Jay Parikh, EVP of Core AI at Microsoft, to unpack the company's evolution from a software factory to an agent factory Jay leads the team res…
- How — and What — to Build in the Age of OpenAI
Where is OpenAI going, and what does it mean for the broader AI and tech ecosystem? Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jason Kwon, Chief Strategy Officer at OpenAI, for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the decisions shaping one…
- The Analyst Mindset in Venture: Madrona Investor Rasik Parikh's story
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Digital Editor Coral Garnick Ducken sits down with Investor Rasik Parikh to unpack his journey from public markets to venture capital and what makes a founder stand out. Rasik shares how working…
- Redefining Communication: Yoodli Founders on AI Roleplays, Confidence & Building in Seattle
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Patrick Ennis sits down with Varun Puri and Esha Joshi, co-founders of Yoodli, an AI-powered communications coach helping people become more confident speakers. Varun and Esha sh…
- From Google and Amazon to NewDays: Why These Tech Vets Bet on AI for Dementia
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Babak Parviz and Daniel Kelly, co-founders of NewDays, a platform purpose-built for older Americans living with cognitive change to help them reclaim…
- The Future of Biology Is Generative: Inside Synthesize Bio's RNA AI Model
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Joe Horsman sits down with Jeff Leek and Rob Bradley, co-founders of Synthesize Bio, a foundation model company for biology that's unlocking experiments researchers could never run in t…
- From $1M to $10M ARR in 6 Months: How Fyxer is Winning AI Productivity
Fyxer.ai is an AI-powered assistant that helps users reclaim hours of their day by managing their inboxes, writing replies, and taking meeting notes. But Fyxer didn't start with AI. It started with a decade-long executive assistant agency…
- Autonomous CRM: How Clarify Is Reinventing a $100B Category
Thompson and Austin Hay, co-founders of Clarify, the startup that's pioneering the idea of autonomous CRM. Their vision? A CRM that actually does the work for sellers of driving outreach, managing pipeline, and surfacing insights without c…
- Bridging Strategy and Startups: Madrona Investor Rolanda Fu's Story
In this Investor Spotlight episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona's Coral Ducken sits down with Investor Rolanda Fu to explore her journey to VC — from playing violin at weddings to advising startups in Chicago. Rolanda shares what drew her…
- V0's Creator on What's Next for AI Dev Tools
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Jared Palmer — designer, developer, and founder of Turborepo (acquired by Vercel), and former VP of AI at Vercel. Jared walks through his unique path from…
- Engineering in the AI Era: Qodo Founder on the AI-Powered SDLC
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Rolanda Fu is joined by Dedy Kredo, the co-founder and chief product officer of QodoAI — formerly CodiumAI, a 2024 IA40 winner and one of the most exciting AI companies shaping the futu…
- Breaking into Enterprise: How Anagram Landed Disney with Cold Outbound
In the latest episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami sits down with Harley Sugarman, founder and CEO of Anagram, to unpack how one pivot, a flood of cold outreach, and relentless focus on behavior change transformed a…
- Building Biotech in Seattle: Madrona Investor Spotlight with Joe Horsman
What happens when a scientist becomes a VC? We sat down with Madrona's Joe Horsman to find out. In this episode, Joe shares his journey from late nights in the lab to helping biotech founders bring life-changing science to market. You'll h…
- The End of Biz Apps? AI, Agility, and The Agent-Native Enterprise from Microsoft CVP Charles Lamanna
In this Founded & Funded episode, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, to unpack his journey from startup founder to corporate leader. They dive into what it takes…
- Building AI That Sells: Scaling Smarter with Luminance CEO Eleanor Lightbody
Entrepreneurs often ask: When do I know it's time to scale? Or, how do I lead when I wasn't the original founder? In this week's Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sits down with Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, who shares…
- Customer Obsession & Agentic AI Power Ravenna's Reinvention of Internal Ops
Most startups bolt AI onto old products. @ravennahq reimagined the entire workflow. When we first met Kevin Coleman and Taylor Halliday, it was clear they weren't just chasing the hype cycle. They were pairing AI-native architecture with…
- Reinventing Recruiting: SeekOut's Anoop Gupta on the Rise of Agentic AI
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar sits down with Anoop Gupta, co-founder and CEO of @SeekOut — an AI-first company transforming how organizations discover, hire, and manage talent. They explore:…
- Unscripted: What Happened After the Mic Went Off with Douwe Kiela
This bonus episode of Founded & Funded is a follow-up to Madrona Partner Jon Turow's conversation with Douwe Kiela, CEO of Contextual AI and co-inventor of RAG. In this quick chat, they dive into: 1) Why storytelling—not just GTM—needs to…
- AI, Ambition, and a $3 Trillion Vision: Satya Nadella on Microsoft's Bold Bet
Microsoft Chairman & CEO Satya Nadella sat down with Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar at Madrona's 2025 Annual Meeting to discuss the key inflection points in his leadership journey, Microsoft's AI strategy, and the massive econom…
- RAG Inventor Talks Agents, Grounded AI, and Enterprise Impact
What does it take to invent a foundational AI paradigm — and then build a company to bring it to the enterprise? In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Jon Turow sits down with Douwe Kiela, co-founder and CEO of Contextual AI…
- Dropzone's Edward Wu on Solving Security's Biggest Bottleneck
The security industry has a math problem: 12 million job postings, only 7 million qualified professionals. The solution? AI. Edward Wu spent nearly a decade at ExtraHop, pioneering AI-driven security detection. But instead of just alerting…
- AI+Data in the Enterprise: Lessons from Mosaic to Databricks
The biggest AI breakthroughs won't come from Ph.D. labs — they'll come from people solving real-world problems. So how do AI founders actually turn cutting-edge research into real products and scale them? In this week's episode of Founded…
- Scaling, AI, and Leadership after Big Tech: Lessons from Highspot's Bhrighu Sareen
Thinking about leaving Big Tech for a startup? In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter sits down with Bhrighu Sareen, who took the leap from Microsoft to Highspot and has been leading AI-driven product inn…
- Serial Entrepreneur Mohit Aron on Founding, Scaling, and Leading Category-Leading Companies
What does it take to go from engineer to founder, from startup CEO to scale CEO? In this special live episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru sits down with Mohit Aron, founder of Nutanix and Cohesity, to unco…
- Terray's Jacob Berlin on The AI-Powered Future of Medicine
Terray Therapeutics CEO Jacob Berlin returns to Founded & Funded after three years to share how the company has scaled from an ambitious startup to an industry leader in AI-driven biotech. Learn how Terray's proprietary hardware combined w…
- Curt Medeiros on Revolutionizing Precision Medicine and Scaling Ovation
Imagine a future where healthcare isn't just reactive but deeply personalized — where every patient gets the right treatment at the right time based on a precise understanding of their biology. This is the future Ovation is building, and o…
- Breaking Conventional Wisdom: Jama Software's Blueprint for Profitable Growth
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and Jama Software CEO Marc Osofsky discuss the intentional strategies that fueled Jama's transformation from $20M ARR to a $1.2 billion acquisition by Francisco Part…
- Archon's Jamie Lazarovits on Unlocking the Full Power of Antibodies With AI
What does it take to move from cutting-edge academic research to launching a biotech company that could transform medicine? In this week's episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Partner Chris Picardo sat down with Jamie Lazarovitz, CEO and c…
- Beyond the Model: Taking AI From Prototype to Production with Unstructured's Brian Raymond
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Karan Mehandru hosts Brian Raymond, founder and CEO of 2024 IA40 winner Unstructured. Unstructured turns raw, messy, unstructured data into something AI tools can actually proc…
- Perseverance Over Speed: Creating a New Category with Impinj's Chris Diorio
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter and Venture Partner Patrick Ennis host Chris Diorio, co-founder and CEO of Impinj, the pioneer and world leader in RFID technology. Patrick and Chris have known each…
- Startup to Scale: A Mini Masterclass in Efficient Growth and GTM
In the latest episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Tim Porter hosts Pradeep Rathinam, a seasoned software executive with over three decades of leadership experience. Paddy was the Founder and CEO of Madrona portfolio comp…
- From Dark Matter to Voice AI with Deepgram Founder Scott Stephenson
Today Madrona Managing Director Karan Mahandru and Scott Stephenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Deepgram, a foundational AI company building a voice AI platform providing APIs for speech-to-text and text-to-speech. From medical transcription to…
- Temporal Founders Bet on Open Source and Developers to Enable Invincible Applications
Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar hosts Temporal Co-Founders Samar Abbas and Maxim Fateev in studio. Temporal was founded in 2019 based on an open-source microservices orchestration engine project but is the result of a more than de…
- Investor Spotlight: Chris Picardo on Cross-Disciplinary Innovation and Finding Unique Founders
In this episode of Founded & Funded, host Coral Garnick Ducken interviews Madrona Partner Chris Picardo for the latest Investor Spotlight. With degrees in math and English, Chris shares his unique journey into venture capital. Chris highli…
- Transforming TV Advertising: iSpot's Sean Muller on the Role of AI and the Future of Streaming
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Venture Partner Len Jordan sits down with Sean Muller, Founder and CEO of iSpot, to talk about the company's evolution in measuring TV advertising for both conventional and streaming platforms.…
- Investor Spotlight: Sabrina Wu on Founder Grit, Authenticity, and Building Intelligent Applications
In this episode of Founded & Funded, host Coral Garnick Ducken interviews Madrona Investor Sabrina Wu for the latest Investor Spotlight. These two discuss Sabrina's transition from private equity to venture capital and the learnings that t…
- Building Predibase: AI, Open-Source, and Commercialization with Dev Rishi and Travis Addair
Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami hosts Dev Rishi and Travis Addair, co-founders of 2023 IA40 Rising Star, Predibase. Predibase is a platform for developers to easily fine-tune and serve any open-source model. They recently released LoRA Lan…
- Read AI's David Shim on Making Meetings More Efficient With Intelligent Agents
In this episode, Madrona Managing Director Matt McIlwain hosts David Shim, founder and CEO of Read AI. These two have known each other for over two decades, having worked together at Farecast and then Placed, which David founded in 2011. T…
- Transforming Corporate Travel: A Conversation With Steve Singh and Christal Bemont
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Managing Director Steve Singh and Christal Bemont, CEO of Direct Travel, Madrona's newest portfolio company, delve into the acquisition of Direct Travel and its pivotal role in revolutionizing t…
- Building a Modern Database: Nikita Shamgunov on Postgres and Beyond
In this episode of Founded & Funded, Madrona Investor Paul Goel and Neon Co-founder & CEO Nikita Shamgunov dive into the database market and the importance of creating a killer developer experience while balancing that experience with perf…
- How Bobsled is Revolutionizing Cross-Cloud Data Sharing
Investor Sabrina Wu hosts Bobsled Co-founder and CEO Jake Graham for the latest episode of Founded & Funded. Jake is revolutionizing data sharing across platforms, enabling customers to get to analysis faster directly in the platforms wher…
- How Writer CEO May Habib Is Making GenAI Work For the Enterprise
Madrona Partner Vivek Ramaswami hosts May Habib, co-founder and CEO of Writer, a 2023 IA40 winner. Writer is a full-stack generative AI platform for the enterprise. In this episode, May shares her perspective on founding a GenAI company be…
- Investor Spotlight: A Conversation with Madrona's Soma Somasegar
Hear from Madrona Managing Director Soma Somasegar as he discusses his path to venture capital by way of 27 years at Microsoft. He shares invaluable insights about what he looks for in a founder, the importance of passion in founders, the…