Power to the Developer — From Stanford to Startup, Now Onwards to MongoDB — The Voyage AI Story
By Murat Bicer and Brian Zhan
Across CRV’s 54 year history, our VC firm has backed over 80 companies that have completed the IPO process including DoorDash, HubSpot and Zendesk. Whether it’s Datadog and Dropbox or Twitter (now X), many of the founders we’ve worked with have had to decide whether they continue on the road to becoming a public company or if they ought to seriously weigh options from potential suitors. CRV has also guided well over 100 of its companies through M&A. Two of the most recent examples are Aerodome, the leader in drone-as-first-responder (DFR) technology, and Trail Security, a data security platform that empowers security teams to manage and protect all of their company’s sensitive data. Aerodome was founded in April of 2023. In February of 2024, CRV joined Aerodome’s board and led Aerodome’s Series A. In October of 2024, Aerodome was acquired by Flock Safety which improves community safety and reduces crime through technology solutions for law enforcement. Trail Security was founded in September 2023 and CRV partnered with the team in May 2024 when we backed Trail Security during its Series A round. By October 2024, Trail Security was acquired by Cyera, an AI-powered data security platform.
Entrepreneurial exit strategy discussions are a topic our investment team is familiar with. Our goal is to point out known potholes in the road and to give our founders a heads up on what different paths could look like based on our more than five decades of experience advising high growth startups during these critical inflection points. One thing we don’t do is grab the wheel while they’re in the driver’s seat. Each founding team is different and here at CRV, we believe our founders know their businesses best.
Voyage AI, which crafts vectorization infrastructure tools for developers, was founded in September 2023. Less than a year after the startup was born, in August 2024, CRV led Voyage AI’s $20 million Series A. With Tengyu Ma (a pioneer in deep learning at Princeton, Meta AI and Stanford) as the co-founder of the company and a top notch bench of leading AI researchers and programmers integrated in the employee base, we knew Voyage AI had the characteristics of a high performing team. Ringing endorsements from top AI platforms including Anthropic, Snowflake and Databricks helped seal the deal for us.
These past few months with the Voyage AI team have been a high speed ride in the exciting world of AI. Today we’re thrilled to reveal that Voyage AI is being acquired by MongoDB, the leading database for modern applications. As early investors in this high caliber AI startup, we are proud that Voyage AI will go on to play a role in MongoDB further solidifying its stance in the AI space.
Since 1970, our firm’s goal has been to be a steady hand that helps founders work through the many questions they face while growing their businesses whether they stay private, go the M&A route or go IPO. We’ve had hundreds of discussions with founders over the years about the future of their companies. Founders choosing the destiny of their companies is similar to a race car driver deciding when to put the pedal to the metal and when to let another car lead. To ensure a successful race, there are many variables you need to consider including the possibility of losing control, increased tire wear, potential mechanical damage and the risk of accidents. For founders there are a lot of unknowns including the value of the company, the impact to their team, capacity to build a growth team, etc. that we look at together. Just like a race car driver, different founders weigh their options differently and may access more weight to certain factors than others. If you’re an entrepreneur with a high growth startup in search of a co-driver that can help you accelerate your business, get to know our team and reach out. For us a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work for ambitious high growth companies and we love forming lasting relationships with our founders and helping them find the path that’s the perfect fit for them on their entrepreneurial journey.
