At a Glance
Decibel is an early-stage venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California that invests in essential infrastructure software used by developers, data engineers and cybersecurity teams. It writes Seed and Series A checks and follows on into Series B and later rounds, concentrating on enterprise software, security and infrastructure.
Jon Sakoda launched the firm in March 2019 in partnership with Cisco, its cornerstone limited partner. The arrangement is not a corporate venture arm. Decibel operates independently, with its own investment committee, capital and decision speed, while portfolio companies receive structured access to Cisco's enterprise customer relationships, security organization and engineering talent. Sakoda came from New Enterprise Associates, where he was a general partner and started the firm's seed program, working with the founding teams of MongoDB, Cloudflare, Elastic, HackerOne, Opower and BlueJeans Network. A 2018 securities filing pointed to a $500 million target for the debut fund, and the firm filed to raise $275 million for a second fund in early 2022.
The approach is first-check conviction in a small number of companies per fund rather than broad seed coverage, skewed toward categories where a technical buyer rather than a business buyer makes the purchasing decision: data observability, developer tooling and security operations. That shows in the portfolio, which includes Abnormal Security in email security, Monte Carlo and Revefi in data reliability, Observe in observability, Blameless in incident response and Shipyard in data orchestration. For management teams selling into large enterprises, the distinguishing offer is proof-of-concept access to a Fortune 100 buyer at a stage when most seed-stage companies cannot get a meeting.
“Invests in enterprise software, security, and infrastructure companies at early stages, leveraging deep operational experience from large technology companies to help founders scale.”
Decibel launched in March 2019, created by Jon Sakoda in partnership with Cisco, which serves as cornerstone limited partner. The structure was unusual for a corporate-backed vehicle: rather than staff an internal venture arm, Cisco funded an independent firm with its own investment committee, preserving the speed and risk tolerance of a standalone seed fund while routing portfolio companies toward Cisco's enterprise customer base and technical talent.
A securities filing in October 2018 pointed to a $500 million target for the debut vehicle. Decibel subsequently filed to raise a second fund of $275 million in early 2022. The firm invests at seed and Series A into infrastructure software used by developers, data engineers and security teams, writing first institutional checks into a concentrated number of positions per fund rather than spreading seed capital broadly. Holdings include Abnormal Security, Monte Carlo, Observe, Blameless, Revefi and Shipyard, a book weighted toward data infrastructure, observability and enterprise security.
Decibel Partners primarily invests at the Seed, Series A, Series B+ stages. This means they focus on companies that are building their initial product and finding product-market fit.
Decibel Partners is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. Many of their portfolio companies are also based in this region, though they invest across geographies.
Decibel Partners focuses on investments in AI, Cybersecurity, DevTools. Their portfolio reflects deep expertise and networks within these sectors.
Decibel Partners's typical investment check size ranges from $100K to $10M. Actual amounts may vary based on the stage, sector, and specific opportunity.
Decibel Partners manages approximately $275M in assets under management (AUM) across their funds.
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