The Venture Codex

Participated · Series C · Apr 2022

Headquartered in San Jose, CA, Ayar Labs builds co-packaged optics that move data between chips with light instead of copper, reducing power consumption while boosting bandwidth for AI infrastructure. Its flagship TeraPHY optical engine is manufactured in concert with leading semiconductor partners and is designed to slot directly into existing accelerator and switch designs. By replacing traditional electrical I/O with optical links, the technology delivers significant performance gains and cost savings in power-constrained environments. Following its latest financing, the company plans to ramp production and testing capacity, open and staff a new office in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and deepen ecosystem partnerships to speed customer deployments. Ayar Labs’ CPO solution is already qualified for industry-standard fab, manufacturing, and packaging flows, positioning it for broad adoption. The company has raised a cumulative $870 million to date, providing substantial capital to execute its global expansion and commercialization roadmap.

Participated · Series E · Jun 2020

Sonder provides stylish, fully furnished apartments and short- to long-term rentals outfitted by an in-house design team, with most units offering kitchens and in-unit laundry and app-based check-in, service requests, and local tips. The company emphasizes contact-free service and flexible pricing aimed at month-plus stays and launched an extended-stay initiative in March to meet rising demand. Sonder manages its own supply chain—pre-vetted furniture assortments, merchandising and sourcing teams, and company warehouses—to maintain consistent design quality and enable rapid installation and shipping to properties. During the pandemic Sonder reported occupancy rates of about 80%, which the company says is significantly above the industry average. It implemented elevated cleaning and safety standards based on WHO and CDC guidance with input from the Cleveland Clinic. The company has used recent fundraising to continue growing thoughtfully and adding new properties. Sonder operates and leases hotel‑style properties and serviced apartments that are furnished and include curated furniture, art, essentials, and phone/text concierge support. Its spaces feature dining areas, living spaces and extra bedrooms designed for travel and urban living. The company currently manages over $2.3 billion of projects spanning mixed‑use, residential, serviced apartment, apart‑hotel and hotel assets across many cities including San Francisco, New York, London and others. Founded in 2012 and co‑founded by CEO Francis Davidson and Lucas Pellan, Sonder operates thousands of spaces. The company intends to use new funding to expand operations. Following the recent round the firm was valued at over $1 billion. Sonder directly maintains and offers well-designed apartments for living that include kitchens, large spaces and services such as maid scheduling and mini-bar menus. Each apartment is uniquely customized to reflect its neighborhood environment. The company operates properties in Boston, London, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New Orleans, New York City, Miami and Montreal. Co-founded in 2014 by Francis Davidson and Lucas Pellan, Sonder is headquartered in San Francisco. The company has hosted more than 200,000 guests and was on track to reach $100M in revenue in 2018. At the time of the article it had raised $135M in total funding. Sonder is a peer-to-peer “hometel” rental service that manages a collection of houses, condos, apartments and boats for travelers. Each hometel must meet an accuracy checklist before joining the collection and bookings are instantly confirmed. The company provides 24/7 customer support and concierge services via email, phone and Facebook Messenger, addressing guest requests within minutes. At launch Sonder offered more than 500 hometels across six cities (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Montreal and Vancouver). It planned to expand into Miami, New York, San Francisco and Toronto later that year. Sonder raised $10M in a Series A (bringing total funding to $15M) and intends to use the funds to expand into new cities, enhance the guest experience and onboard key hires. The company is led by CEO and co-founder Francis Davidson and is based in Montreal and San Francisco.

Participated · Equity · Jun 2019

Druva offers a SaaS cloud data backup and protection service for enterprises. The company says it almost tripled annual revenue in three years and had passed the $100M ARR threshold by 2019. Druva has announced a selection by Dell that the article says could provide a sizeable customer base. Management reported accelerating business and noted over 200 open go-to-market roles as it scales. The company intends to invest in staff, technology and GTM motion as typical for growth rounds. Druva has also worked on cloud engineering to defend software-like margins despite material storage loads and has been discussed as a potential IPO candidate. Druva offers exclusively cloud-based, SaaS data protection, backup and management software for enterprise customers. The company emphasizes a cloud-native approach that requires no hardware appliances, positioning it against incumbents and newer entrants. Druva serves about 4,000 organizations and CEO Jaspreet Singh said the company is nearly at a $100 million annual run rate; he declined to disclose revenues. The company is expanding its storage capabilities through the acquisition of CloudLanes and plans to invest in business intelligence, security, and secure endpoints. Druva says its cloud-first heritage gives it operational advantages as enterprises move more workloads and copy data to the cloud. Druva is described in the TechCrunch Crunch Report as a cloud data management startup. The article reports that Druva raised $80M. No additional details about the company’s specific products, technology, customers, or operating metrics are provided in the piece. The report does not describe Druva’s future plans or how the funds will be used. The coverage appears as a brief news item within TechCrunch’s roundup. No investor names, round type, valuation, location, or founding year are included in the article. Druva offers cloud-native data backup, recovery and discovery services that help businesses manage storage, disaster recovery, compliance, and legal data retention. Its platform is built to integrate with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Druva serves large enterprises and government agencies, with customers that include NASA, NBC Universal, ServiceNow and Stanford University. Over the past two years the company has established subsidiaries in Japan and Germany and plans further international expansion into Singapore. It has raised $51M in the latest round and more than $100M in total to date. The company said it will use the new capital to expand products and services, hire staff, and increase sales and marketing, and is eyeing an IPO within the next year. Druva provides cloud backup, data protection and governance with a focus on enterprise mobile devices. The product emphasizes mobile data protection, eDiscovery integration (Recommind and AccessData), and mobile-device recovery to restore users and isolate content during litigation. Its client software continuously captures configured content when devices are on corporate networks and throttles bandwidth/CPU off‑network with configurable aggressiveness. Druva positions itself against traditional backup/governance and eDiscovery vendors such as EMC, Symantec and HP rather than consumer cloud storage vendors like Dropbox or Box. Notable customers include NASA, Pfizer, Dell and Hitachi, and the company grew from about 2,100 to 3,000 enterprise customers in the ten months prior to this round. Druva plans to invest the new capital in product expansion and to grow its international presence, including adding to its London office and opening an office in Tokyo. CEO Jaspreet Singh said more details on the company’s "high value bets" will be disclosed in the Fall.