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The Venture Codex

Sands Capital

1000 Wilson Blvd, Suite 3000, Arlington, VA, 22209, United States

Overview

Sands Capital is an active, long-term investor in innovative growth businesses. The approach combines rigorous fundamental analysis with inspired thinking to seek out businesses that are creating the future. They operate through two affiliates: Sands Capital Management, which focuses on investing in companies in the public market, and Sands Capital Ventures, which focuses on investing in companies in the private market. By enabling clients to participate in the growth of these businesses, its mission is to add value and enhance their wealth with prudence over time.

Total investments
158
Lead investments
37
Investments · 12mo
15
Active investors
10

Sector focus

  • Biotechnology
  • Enterprise Software
  • Financial Services
  • Venture Capital
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Investment portfolio

  • K2 Space

    Participated · Series D · Jul 2026

    K2 Space designs and manufactures large, high-power satellites with a heavily vertically integrated supply chain that produces more than 85% of its platform in-house. The company operates a 180,000 sq ft factory in Torrance, California, configured to manufacture up to 100 satellites per year. K2 has won major commercial and national security contracts, including an initial tranche of 30 satellites for SES’s meoSphere network, work with Anduril on the Golden Dome program, and selection as the bus provider for the Space Force’s Protected Tactical Satcom-Global program. Financially, K2 has cumulatively raised over $1 billion in capital and secured over $1 billion in signed contracts. Near-term product and operational plans include launching the Trinity mission in Q2 2027 and introducing a 100 kW Giga-class satellite in the second half of 2028 to enable larger on-orbit compute and payload capacity.

  • Baseten

    Led · Series F · Jun 2026

    Baseten provides software and multi-cloud compute infrastructure to help companies optimize, customize, and serve open-source AI models, handling inference workloads and latency optimization. The company positions itself as enabling enterprises to deploy open-source models efficiently, competing with closed-source alternatives by reducing costs; at least one customer reported up to a 30% cost reduction. Key customers include Cursor, Mercor, and OpenEvidence. Baseten’s annualized revenue run rate has surged from roughly $200 million to about $600 million. The company has rapidly increased its valuation in 2025–2026 through multiple financing rounds, most recently reaching as high as $13 billion in the current transaction.

  • Ramp

    Participated · Series F · Jun 2026

    Ramp started as an expense-management platform and has expanded into payments, fraud detection, procurement, vendor management and accounting while integrating AI capabilities across its product suite. The company says it has more than 70,000 customers, including Visa, Uber, Shopify, Anduril and Figma, up from 50,000 last November. Ramp reported annualized revenue of more than $1 billion (with Bloomberg reporting a run-rate above $1.5 billion) and said it has reached positive free cash flow. It has launched AI-focused features such as AI agents for procurement, expense management, accounting and budgeting, and even a corporate credit card intended for AI-agent use. Ramp has raised over $3 billion in total capital to date. Management has indicated an eventual aim to go public, though no timing was given.

  • RevEng.AI

    Participated · Series A · May 2026

    RevEng.AI builds a binary-native verification layer and an AI model called BinNet that analyses software directly at the binary level to identify hidden vulnerabilities, backdoors, and suspicious functionality. The platform inspects compiled executables, firmware, and third-party applications without requiring access to source code. The company developed its model in collaboration with government cyber units and commercial security teams. RevEng.AI is positioning its technology for procurement and deployment checks, release comparisons, and integration into security and software delivery workflows. It reports early demand from enterprise and defence customers. Financially, the company recently raised $15 million in a Series A to support growth and deployment of its verification platform.

  • Cnuic

    Participated · Seed · Apr 2026

    Cnuic has developed a working prototype of a completely new type of photolithography device that leverages properties of light to enable rapid, reconfigurable production of photonic chips with enhanced 3D control. The company says this approach allows manufacturing possibilities previously impossible and could unlock mass production of photonic components. Cnuic positions its technology as a potential enabler for higher-speed, lower-power data-centre hardware and accelerated AI model training by removing communication bottlenecks among processors. The company also highlights broader applications for its technology across metalenses, 3D photonic crystals, AR/VR waveguides, flexible gratings, and other light-based systems. Cnuic is based in Edinburgh and is pursuing commercialization and scaling of its prototype following the pre-seed raise. Investors describe the technology as a major deep-tech breakthrough that could strengthen Europe’s role in the global semiconductor industry.

Team