Recently, the board of a startup I sit on was facing an important decision. The company was raising a new round of funding, and we had the happy dilemma of choosing between four compelling offers. Everyone had a strong opinion of which was best, none of which were the same…

When I was in business school, I made a lot of great connections (including one with my wife) but only learned two tangible things. Both came from Stanford’s famed accounting professor, Jim Van Horne: 1) cash is more important than your mother, and 2) you need an investor with not…

After two years of success with our Costanoa Access Fellowship program, we thought it was time to go bigger and better. This summer, we’re offering not only an MBA/grad student fellowship but an additional undergraduate one as well. The Costanoa Access Fellowship addresses an obvious shortcoming in venture capital today…

While most of us live in a highly connected world, twenty-three percent of American households do not have a high-speed Internet connection. Moreover, six in ten people living in rural areas feel their values don’t align with those living in cities. …

I recently detailed the reasons why boutique firms have uniquely compelling value propositions for startup founders — we bring focused capabilities, specialized expertise, and a deep emotional commitment that are hard to find at multi-stage, multi-sector funds (also known as the bulge bracket firms). However, like any product manager, I…

For the last 14 years, I’ve regularly heard people exclaim, “The world (especially the VC ecosystem) is awash with liquidity.” Both founders and VCs themselves are gorging themselves on an abundance of cash. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that if a little money is good, a lot of money…

I’m thrilled to announce our investment in Pepperdata, a company whose product embodies our thesis that great AI applications need great managed data. We’re big believers in the idea that building and managing the data stack is critical to the success of efforts to build world-class AI applications. Many of…

It isn’t often we see the the progress and trajectory that Roadster has delivered over the last year. Investors sometimes talk about the “Oh, s**t!” board meeting when they finally see what they actually invested in. In this case, we had the “Oh, wow!” experience. Roadster provides the modern auto…

When Costanoa opened its doors in late 2012, the data revolution was underway. Thanks to the intersection of the internet, mobility and cloud computing, the ensuing information explosion generated unique opportunities for entrepreneurs to deliver products that create and transform industries. I have seen a lot of changes in the…