Costanoa Ventures

Costanoa Ventures was founded in 2012 by Greg Sands, a former partner at Sutter Hill Ventures, with a mission to fill the gap in early-stage enterprise funding. The firm positions itself as a 'missing middle' investor, focusing on companies that have moved beyond the initial product-market fit stage but aren't yet ready for traditional Series B growth capital. Costanoa typically writes $3-8M checks and takes 10-15% stakes in seed through Series A rounds. The firm has built a strong reputation in enterprise software and data infrastructure, with notable investments including Snowflake (which went public in 2020), Segment (acquired by Twilio for $3.2B), and LaunchDarkly. Greg Sands leads the investment team with a hands-on approach, often taking board seats and working closely with founders on go-to-market strategy and team building. What distinguishes Costanoa is its concentrated portfolio approach and deep enterprise software expertise, allowing the team to provide meaningful support to a smaller number of companies rather than spreading resources across hundreds of investments.