Carbide Ventures
Venture capitalPalo Alto · Pre-Seed–Series A · 9 people tracked
Investment thesis
Carbide Ventures makes high-conviction investments at the pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages, focusing on what it calls the 'New Age of Compute.' The firm prefers B2B companies, particularly those selling to large enterprises, and believes advances in artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, and materials will continue to drive software's expansion. Run by operators who have helped build multiple unicorns and $100M+ ARR businesses, the firm brings functional expertise across go-to-market, product, technology, and finance. It invests globally across North America, Asia, and Europe, and offers particular support for the US-Japan corridor, helping companies with Japan market entry and Japanese companies expanding worldwide.
Source: firm website, verified Aug 25, 2026.
Team · 9 people
from the firm's website & public directories
Founder mafia
3 people who came through Carbide Ventures went on to found or lead other companies.
What they invest in
from 31 of 55 portfolio companiesSaaS ×15AI & Machine Learning ×14Enterprise Software ×13Data & Infrastructure ×8Cloud Computing ×6Hardware ×4Marketing Tech ×4Cybersecurity ×3
HQs:United States×11Japan×6Australia×2United Kingdom×1Singapore×1
Who they back
founder profiles across 14 portfolio companiesFounding team size:solo founder×82 founders×23 founders×14+ founders×3
Where their founders studiedfrom 10 founders with education data
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ×2
Where their founders worked beforefrom 13 founders with career history
Google ×2MIT ×2Uber ×2
Accelerator rootsportfolio companies that came through a program
Investments · 55 tracked
founders shown can be your intro pathBy year:2024 · 22023 · 22021 · 12015 · 16 dated
Impinj develops RAIN RFID technology used to connect physical items to digital systems, serving businesses across industries through its partners and solutions.
Enterprise SoftwareHardwareIoTRetail TechSemiconductors
Chris Diorio(Founder & CEO)Cary Baker(Chief Financial Officer)inGahan Richardson(Executive Vice President and General Manager, Impinj Business Unit)Cathal Phelan(Chief Innovation Officer)Yukio Morikubo(General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer)Alberto Pesavento(Chief Technology Officer)
Co-investorsMadrona Venture Group
Prior team investment (NASDAQ:LASR).
Bloomington, US
Michael Somers(Executive Officer, Director)Nageswar Bijivemula(Executive Officer, Director)
Board seatDan Weirich· per SEC Form D · $2M raise · filed Jul 2024
BrazeAI Decisioning Studio is an AI platform that helps marketers make personalized 1:1 customer decisions by optimizing channel, offer, creative, and timing across hundreds of customer attributes.
AI & Machine LearningMarketing TechBoston, US
George Khachatryan(Executive Officer, Director)Victor Kostyuk(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardMike Ghaffary(Director)in
Co-investorsAfterWork VenturesBlack Nova VCCanvas VenturesHarmony PartnersMenlo VenturesRidge Ventures+1 more
Beetexting is a business texting platform that lets sales, service, operations, recruiting, and marketing teams communicate with contacts over SMS through shared inboxes, automations, and bots.
Enterprise SoftwareSaaSSales Tech
Bifrost provides GPU-accelerated simulation and synthetic data generation for physical AI systems, enabling teams to train, test, and evaluate robotic and autonomous systems using photorealistic, multi-modal sensor data.
AI & Machine LearningDeep TechRoboticsSingapore, SG
Charles Wong(Founder)in
Co-investorsChampion Hill VenturesIn-Q-TelMD One VenturesPeak XV PartnersTechstarsAirbus Ventures+1 more
Chronosphere is an observability platform for microservices and containers, offering an end-to-end observability solution and a telemetry pipeline (from the creators of Fluent Bit and Calyptia) to collect, transform, and route telemetry data while controlling cost and complexity.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper Tools
Co-investorsACTAI VenturesSierra Ventures
Software platform for retail store operations management.
Co-investorsFIRSTLIGHT CapitalNew Commerce VenturesOriental Land Innovations
Design platform; Blackbird invested when it was just an idea and in every round since.
SocialSurry Hills, Nsw, AU
Melanie Perkins(Co-founder & CEO)inClifford Obrecht(Executive Officer, Director)Melanie Joy Perkins(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Clifford James Obrecht(Executive Officer, Director, Promoter)Cliff Obrecht(Co-founder & COO)inCameron Adams(Co-founder & CPO)in
Co-investors500 GlobalAirTree VenturesAlkeon InnovationAlpha Square GroupAltra VentureAthletic Ventures+35 more
Prior team investment; acquired by IBM.
Platform connecting corporations with volunteer and giving opportunities for CSR.
Chronosphere provides an observability platform for microservices and containers that helps teams detect and fix customer-impacting issues while controlling costs and complexity.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureDeveloper ToolsSaaSNew York, US
MARTIN CHEN MAO(Executive Officer, Director)ROBERT JAMES SKILLINGTON(Executive Officer, Director)Martin Mao(Co-Founder & CEO (now SVP, GM Observability, Palo Alto Networks))inRob Skillington(Co-Founder & CTO)inAshley Alexander(Chief People Officer)Margaret Dawson(Global Head of Marketing)
Co-investorsACTAI VenturesAdditionAntiBasis Set VenturesCardinia VenturesFounders Fund+13 more
Cledara provides a software management platform for finance teams to discover, purchase, manage, and cancel software subscriptions across their organization.
Enterprise SoftwareFintechSaaSLondon, GB
Cristina Vila
Co-investorsAnthemis VentureCommerzVenturesNauta CapitalNotion CapitalTechstarsMassive
IBM Cloudant is a managed NoSQL database service based on Apache CouchDB, designed for building hyperscale, globally distributed applications with features including encryption, multi-region availability, full-text search, and geospatial indexing.
Cloud ComputingData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareBoston, US
Michael Miller(Founder/Chief Scientist)inAlan Hoffman(Founder/Director of Product)inAdam Kocoloski(Founder/CTO)in
Co-investorsAvalon Ventures Management, LlcF-Prime CapitalToba CapitalY Combinator
Dyad converts unstructured healthcare data into structured clinical codes (SNOMED, ICD-10, CPT) using its GENIE graph-based AI and clinical knowledge graph, delivering outputs into existing EHRs, applications, and data lakes.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureHealthtech
Co-investorsACTAI Ventures
Live interactive video platform for community engagement and monetization.
Co-investorsACTAI Ventures
Fan and community engagement platform in Japan.
Prior team investment (NASDAQ:IAWK).
LakeFusion provides AI-powered Master Data Management (MDM) software integrated with the Databricks Lakehouse platform, giving businesses a unified platform to manage, integrate, and optimize their data.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise Software
Lazuli provides a product data platform that uses generative AI to collect, organize, and enrich product information for enterprises.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise SoftwareSaaSTokyo, JP
Seigen Hagiwara(Founder)in
Co-investorsCoral CapitalGlobal Brain
Liven offers an all-in-one technology platform for hospitality businesses that integrates back-of-house and front-of-house operations.
AI & Machine LearningEnterprise SoftwareFoodTechRetail TechSaaSMelbourne, AU
Co-investorsACTAI VenturesArtesianBlitzscaling VenturesPerennial Partners
Prior team investment; acquired by Avast.
Lumber offers an AI-based workforce management platform for construction companies, covering certified payroll, prevailing wage and union compliance, hiring and credential tracking, and real-time field operations visibility.
AI & Machine LearningConstruction TechHR TechSan Jose, US
Shreesha Ramdas(Founder)
Co-investorsConvergeFirsthandVC
Coroyawa is a specialized flooring material designed to reduce fracture and trauma risk for elderly users by combining stable walking comfort with impact absorption during falls.
HardwareHealthtechMedical DevicesNew MaterialsHamamatsu, JP
Yuya Miyajimain
Co-investorsHulic StartupInclusion JapanJIC Venture Growth InvestmentsMonozukuri VenturesMPowerTechstars
Co-investorsCaesar Ventures
Nutmeg is a tourism DX platform that helps tourism operators—such as theme parks, attractions, transport services, and aquariums—increase direct sales through online booking, electronic ticketing, CRM/marketing automation, and fan-building tools.
Marketing TechSaaSTravel & HospitalityBerkeley, JP
Takashi Nakaguchi(Chief Executive Officer and President)
Co-investorsCoral Capital
QuEra develops neutral-atom quantum computers, building both the quantum hardware and the classical control systems that operate them, along with related software and applications.
Deep TechHardwareQuantum Computing
Nate Gemelke(Co-founder, Chief Technology Strategist)Vladan Vuletić(Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer)inMikhail Lukin(Co-founder & Chief Scientist)Markus Greiner(Co-founder)Takuya Kitagawa(President)inDean Bogdanovic(SVP Engineering)in
Co-investorsSafar PartnersSoftBank Vision FundFinTech VenturesNVentures
Prior team investment (NYSE:RKUS).
Runetale provides a secure mesh network (VPN) that automates point-to-point connectivity with zero configuration, using WireGuard-based peer-to-peer encryption and least-privilege access.
Cloud ComputingCybersecurityEnterprise Software
Co-investorsDelight Ventures
Prior team investment; acquired by Keys.
Skill and talent management platform for strategic HR.
Skillnote is a skills management platform that visualizes and analyzes employee skills, licenses, and training plans on a single matrix, and centralizes records for quality standard audits such as ISO 9001 and IATF 16949.
Advanced ManufacturingHR TechSaaS
Prior team investment; acquired by GE.
SOUNDRAW is an AI music generator that creates royalty-free, legally licensed tracks trained exclusively on in-house produced music.
AI & Machine LearningCreator EconomyMedia & Entertainment
Co-investorsANOBAKAAPOLLO CAPITALmint VC
Springdel builds an enterprise-grade EdgeOps platform (Springmatic) for managing and running interactive edge devices at scale, offering fleet visibility, device and data control, and AI-ready deep-learning insights.
Enterprise SoftwareIoTSaaS
Co-investorsBeyond Ventures
Synacor provides cloud-based software and services for video, internet, and communications providers, device manufacturers, governments, and enterprises.
Cloud ComputingCybersecurityEnterprise SoftwareMedia & EntertainmentSaaSBuffalo, US
William J. Stuart(Executive Officer)Himesh Bhise(Executive Officer, Director)Drake Harvey(Chief Executive Officer (CEO))Ira Berger(Chief Finance Officer (CFO))Anthony Chadd(Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), Zimbra)Bret Cunningham(Chief Product Officer (CPO))
Co-investorsNorth Atlantic Capital
TheSEA provides an operating system and workflow platform for beauty brands to integrate AI into their creative processes from the ground up.
AI & Machine LearningMarketing TechSaaSTokyo, JP
Yanjin Li(CEO & Cofounder)Yoshihiro Onchi(CMO & Cofounder)
WALT automates data pipeline optimization and decision-making workflows for organizations of any size.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureEnterprise Software
Treasure Data offers the Personalization AI Suite, an AI-native tool that uses unified customer data and real-time signals to automatically personalize web content, offers, and experiences for individual customers.
AI & Machine LearningData & InfrastructureMarketing Tech
Hiro Yoshikawa(Founder)in
Co-investorsHaymaker VenturesHeavybitSoftBank Vision Fund
Customer data platform unifying operations, service, sales and marketing.
Mountain View, US
Kazuki Ota(Executive Officer, Director)Hironobu Yoshikawa(Executive Officer, Director)
BoardTim Guleri(Director)inAndy Vitus(Director)inMorlo Kurosaki(Director)William Tai(Director)in
Co-investorsHeavybitIT-Farm CorporationSierra VenturesScale Venture Partners
Type Five combines modular design with construction methods to build customizable accessory dwelling units and living spaces, offering up-front pricing and faster move-in times.
Construction TechPropTechBerkeley, US
BoardAleksis Bertoni(Director)Tim Thimmaiah(Executive Officer, Director)in
Co-investorsBackwards CapitalBlack Jays VenturesHawk Hill VenturesNight CapitalZelda Ventures
Agentic data platform turning structured data into a reasoning layer for AI workflows.
Widevine provides digital rights management solutions that enable media service providers to secure and deliver high-quality video and audio content across consumer electronics devices.
Cloud ComputingCybersecurityEnterprise SoftwareMedia & EntertainmentSaaS
Co-investorsVantagePoint Capital Partners
Wish is a mobile-first, low-price e-commerce marketplace connecting mainly Chinese merchants with bargain shoppers worldwide.
San Francisco, US
Peter Szulczewski(Founder)in
Co-investors137 Ventures8VCAcequia Capital (AceCap)China Growth CapitalCoatue ManagementCRV (Charles River Ventures)+14 more
Prior team investment (NYSE:YUME).
Prior team investment (NASDAQ:ZM).
zypl.ai builds AI credit-risk software for financial institutions, using its proprietary zGAN synthetic data generator to power products for credit scoring, collection scoring, fraud detection, and IFRS-9/GAAP loan provisioning.
AI & Machine LearningFintechSaaS
Co-investorsPresightPresto Ventures
Findy is a Japanese company, founded in 2014, that operates online platforms to support software engineers and improve development organizations' productivity.
Developer ToolsHR TechSaaS
Co-investorsKDDI Open Innovation FundZENRIN FUTURE PARTNERS
Rows marked “SEC filing” are inferred from directors named on the company's SEC Form D — public regulatory data, not a portfolio list published by the firm.
Exits · 4
IPOs and acquisitions across the tracked portfolioImpinjNASDAQ: PInLightNASDAQ: LASRCalyptiaacq. by ChronosphereLocation Labsacq. by Avast
Portfolio news
latest coverage across their companiesWish · laconiadailysun.com · Aug 19, 2026
Impinj · tickerreport.com · Aug 16, 2026
8x8 · finance.yahoo.com · Aug 12, 2026
Chronosphere · Palo Alto Networks · Jan 29, 2026
Runetale · itbusinesstoday.com · Aug 20, 2025
Liven · tradingview.com · Jun 24, 2025
Frequently asked questions
- How many investments has Carbide Ventures made?
- Carbide Ventures has 54 tracked investments, 5 of which have exited via acquisition or IPO, including 2 dated in the last 24 months.
- What stage does Carbide Ventures invest at?
- Carbide Ventures invests at the Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A stages.
- What sectors does Carbide Ventures focus on?
- Carbide Ventures focuses on AI & Machine Learning, Crypto & Web3, Data & Infrastructure, Deep Tech, EdTech, Enterprise Software, Fintech, Hardware, Healthtech, IoT, New Materials, Quantum Computing, SaaS.
- Where is Carbide Ventures located?
- Carbide Ventures is headquartered in Palo Alto, US.
- Who does Carbide Ventures co-invest with?
- Carbide Ventures most often shares deals with ACTAI Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Techstars, among 125 tracked co-investors.
Images
Co-investors · 7
Techstars is a startup accelerator and early-stage investor that funds ambitious founders and provides capital, mentorship, and access to a global network of investors, operators, and corporate partners.
Peak XV Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm that partners with founders from seed through venture and growth stages.
Airbus Ventures is a conviction-led venture firm that invests in early-stage companies building critical industrial infrastructure, national security systems, and platforms supporting global commerce and defense.
Foundation Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that commits to founders at the idea stage and maintains long-term relationships with portfolio companies through their growth journey.
Sapphire Ventures partners with expansion-stage enterprise software companies aiming to become category leaders.
Bowery Capital is an early-stage venture firm focused on B2B software companies, providing hands-on go-to-market, talent, and business development support to founders.
Silverton Partners is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Texas that partners with founders long-term, having backed 75+ portfolio companies with 30+ acquisitions and 4 IPOs.
Firms observed investing alongside Carbide Ventures, from public investor directories. Shared companies are the overlap with Carbide Ventures's recorded portfolio.
Similar investors
Everywhere Ventures is an early-stage venture firm, backed by a community of founders and operators as LPs, that writes early checks (including pre-seed) into startups across many sectors and geographies.
Alpha Edison is an early-stage venture firm that partners with entrepreneurs using technology to unlock latent demand in markets where consumer and business behaviors are shifting.
Range is a venture capital firm that invests in founders building novel solutions in overlooked or challenging categories. The firm focuses on consensus founders with unique insights, backing companies at various stages across diverse sectors.
Rockies Venture Club is an angel investor network of 100+ active members focused on Seed to Series A opportunities, offering due diligence, syndication nationwide, and educational programming for investors and entrepreneurs.
Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla.