Clear Ventures Promotes Khalig Howard and Noor Kamruddin to Investment Team, Zach Poley to Partner, CTO and Somnath Banerjee to Partner, Chief Data Scientist

Unveils ClearConnect — The First Deep AI-Based VC Operating System

It is common knowledge that artificial intelligence (AI) and big data analytics are revolutionizing the world by giving individuals and enterprises new superpowers to accelerate their success. No industry is immune from this disruptive mega-trend. At Clear Ventures we believe the traditional word-of-mouth-based venture capital (VC) model is ripe for a technology refresh cycle as well.

For the past several years, Clear Ventures has quietly been investing heavily to build ClearConnect — the world’s first AI-based, VC Operating System (VCOS). ClearConnect uses leading edge data science to algorithmically empower the Clear Ventures team to provide portfolio companies with highly differentiated access to qualified customers for sales acceleration, outstanding talent sourcing for recruiting success, and process management for follow-on financing success. Developed as a strategic catalyst to help gifted technical founders win in DeepTech investment areas such as AI, the intelligent enterprise, and vertical SaaS, ClearConnect is setting a new standard for VC portfolio value-add. Today the firm is pleased to announce the following promotions to acknowledge excellence in early-stage deep technology venture investing, post-investment partnering via Clear Portfolio Services, and ClearConnect software development:

• Noor Kamruddin has been promoted to Partner, Investments and Operations.
• Khalig Howard has been promoted to Principal, Investments and Portfolio Services.
• Zach Poley has been promoted to Partner and Chief Technology Officer.
• Somnath Banerjee has been promoted to Partner and Chief Data Scientist.

According to Clear Ventures Founding Partner Christopher Rust, “Clear Ventures was founded with an unwavering commitment to cultivating top talent within the portfolio and within the firm. Having worked and collaborated with hundreds of people in the venture capital industry since joining Sequoia Capital in 1998, and later founding Clear in 2014, I have been fortunate to team up with some of the very best talent in the history of the VC asset class. At Clear, our team synergy, collaboration, and productivity bring joy to all that we do each day to help founders win. As demonstrated by Clear portfolio company Concentric.ai recently being named a 2023 top 10 AI company by CRN Magazine and Kognitos winning Ventana Research’s Prestigious Digital Innovation Award, Clear Ventures has been heavily focused on AI and DeepTech well before the current hype cycle. A key difference between Clear and others is we strive to help create opportunity rather than pick winners. We are investors in, and heavy users of, GenAI and LLMs. Our in-house use of generative AI and large language models are core elements of ClearConnect and Clear Portfolio Services. These well deserved promotions for Noor, Khalig, Zach and Somnath acknowledge their outstanding contributions to ClearConnect, Clear Portfolio Services, our portfolio companies, and our esteemed investors. Their efforts on sales acceleration, recruiting, and strategic planning have earned accolades from our portfolio company leaders.”

Investment Team and Partner Promotions

Noor has been promoted to Partner, Investments and Operations. She has been an active contributor to the Clear Ventures investment team sourcing, screening, and post-investment value-add since joining the firm in 2019. She is responsible for the Clear Ventures investments in Kognitos with former Nutanix Cloud CTO Binny Gill and Gen1E with Dr. Ritu Lal. She contributes broadly to the firm’s diligence and post-investment portfolio management efforts.

Khalig Howard has been promoted to Principal, Investments and Portfolio Services. He sourced Clear’s investments in Visla with former Zoom Chief Scientist Dr. Huipin Zhang, and Evidently AI with former Lattice/Apple and Alation founder Dr. Feng Niu. His measurable value-add across the Clear portfolio with qualified introductions to customers, talent for recruiting success, and follow-on financing efforts help the Clear portfolio reach its full potential each day.

Although Clear Ventures has been low-key about promoting its use of data science, Clear has built formidable captive software assets that turbo-charge its frontier technology VC practice. Just last quarter alone ClearConnect and Clear Portfolio Services sourced, screened, and helped close 19 of 35 key hires across the active Clear portfolio. One portfolio company alone secured over 40 customer meetings that were algorithmically sourced using ClearConnect.

Zachary Poley has been promoted to Partner and Chief Technology Officer. Zach is a highly skilled full-stack software engineer and architect with specialized expertise in skills-based people search. Zach’s seminal contributions to Clear’s internal software development efforts cannot be overstated.

Somnath Banerjee has been promoted to Partner, Chief Data Scientist. Somnath is a widely recognized data science guru who made substantial contributions to high-volume websites such as Pinterest and Walmart.com. Somnath has contributed key expertise on search, generative AI, and the use of large language models to take Clear’s internal software development efforts to the next level.

Rajeev Madhavan, Clear Partner, and Co-Founder said this about the promotions and Clear’s data-driven approach: “With the power of AI, we have the agility to quickly identify gifted talent, navigate markets with unprecedented foresight, and deliver results at a pace that hasn’t been possible before. Over the last half decade, we have repeatedly been the founding VC to gifted technology entrepreneurs. As we see it, AI changes everything and ClearConnect is our game changer. It will ensure we’re at the forefront of this as we push the boundaries of innovation and build a future that’s rewarding for our team, our portfolio companies, and the VC community at large.”

Engineering — A Data-driven Approach to Venture Investing

Data-driven strategies are becoming increasingly essential for investment decision-making. Founded by serial tech entrepreneurs, Clear has long recognized the need to understand and harness the power of data to identify emerging trends, uncover high-potential investment opportunities, and make informed, first-mover-advantage decisions for our portfolio companies.

According to Zach Poley, Partner and CTO, “Unlike other VC firms, we do more than just provide funding to startups. We help them build the company from the ground up — we’re writing software and engineering our own solutions to problems which enables us to streamline solutions to a more complex set of problems vs cobbling together a stack of off-the-shelf solutions. I’m thrilled to step into my new role as Partner and CTO. This is a golden opportunity to strengthen and harmonize our collaborative efforts, further fueling our innovative approach to developing the advanced tools and technology platforms that have proven instrumental in driving Clear and our portfolio’s success. The journey ahead is exciting. I look forward to harnessing cutting-edge technology solutions, not only to maintain our winning position in the marketplace, but also to catalyze unprecedented growth and prosperity.”

According to Somnath Banerjee, Partner and Chief Data Scientist: “I too am delighted to see Clear investing in technology and human capital to further support our portfolio companies and I’m honored to get a bigger role in this journey. I am extremely excited to get this opportunity to enhance the AI capabilities of the Clear engineering platform and can’t wait to see how it can help Clear and its portfolio companies achieve even greater success. By investing in our engineering team, leveraging data science and AI, we gain a deeper understanding of companies and individuals. AI provides a unique opportunity to expand our ability to process vast amounts of data, generate actionable insights that are crucial for portfolio companies to engage with their next customers or make critical hires.”

Investments in a Connected World — Making Economies Successful

Understanding market dynamics — and how quickly things can shift and evolve — can make a huge difference in a VC’s success rate. Data now shows that venture-capital-backed companies are a major catalyst for growth in our economy, spurring job growth eight times faster than the overall private sector.

According to Partner Noor Kamruddin, “Venture Capitalists make significant contributions to economies — just think of all the new tech that has now become pervasive in our everyday lives. With my background as an engineer, I’ve had a front-row seat to see how these advancements are changing our world. At Clear, we believe the role of the VC is even more critical today and I look forward to helping Clear play a pivotal role.”

About Clear Ventures

With $335 million of capital from a world-class investor base, Clear Ventures is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that is purpose-built to help startup teams win in frontier technology and services. Founded by veteran company builders and venture investors Chris Rust and Rajeev Madhavan, formerly of Sequoia Capital and USVP and founders of five successful companies, Clear provides early capital, connections, and company-building insights to bold startup teams so their ideas can grow into market-leading companies.