Costanoa Ventures

Costanoa Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2012 and based in Palo Alto, California, with a second office in San Francisco. It invests at pre-seed, seed and Series A across AI, fintech and cybersecurity, extending into applied AI, AI and data infrastructure, and national security. The positioning is the missing middle: institutional enough to lead a round and hold a concentrated stake of 10 to 15 percent or more, small enough that each partner makes only two or three new investments a year. The firm has reported $750 million in assets under management. Notable portfolio companies include Snowflake, Segment, Checkr, Plaid, Auth0, Sumo Logic and Algolia, with a current cohort led by Vannevar Labs, Muon Space, Lively, SGNL, Ivo and Smack Technologies.

Founder and managing partner Greg Sands built Costanoa as the specialist alternative to multi-stage megafunds, arguing that boutique firms bring focused capabilities and deeper commitment than bulge-bracket investors. Fund I wrote $500,000 to $3 million checks, and check sizes have scaled with each vintage while the strategy has not; a parallel series of opportunity funds, first raised in 2018, lets the firm follow its fastest-growing companies into growth rounds without diluting the early-stage mandate. What separates Costanoa from similarly sized peers is BuilderOps, a dedicated operating bench covering sales and go-to-market, talent, and product marketing that works directly with portfolio company management teams on first sales hires, go-to-market playbooks and launch planning. The firm is an SEC exempt reporting adviser, file number 802-77031.