Jerry Chen
Jerry searches for ambitious founders who are redefining enterprise software.
Bio
I admire founders who have a distinct point of view. They have a vision of where a market is going, a strong understanding about the impact of new technology, a differentiated insight to a problem or customer need. And they’re able to imagine what is possible.
From creative vision to category creation
My career started in 1996, just as the modern internet was born. The Netscape IPO a year earlier was this “Aha!” moment when everyone realized the massive potential of technology. I had just graduated from Stanford and jumped into working in tech. In 2003, I joined VMware, where I spent almost a decade as a product leader and executive. As an early hire, I watched the company grow from 250 to more than 15,000 employees.
At VMware, there was a premium placed on innovation and imagination, which was really the key to its success. It was about having a boundless creative vision of what a new technology could do and the confidence to will it into existence. I was the guy the founders brought in to launch new products, some failed, some succeeded. I learned the value of perseverance and the value of taking risks, eventually leading to a series of successful products and initiatives including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Cloud Foundry, and the cloud app platform team. That experience has made me a strong partner to founders at Greylock.
Altering market dynamics
I’ve been lucky to have worked or invested through several platform shifts including the internet, cloud, mobile, and now AI. Through all the market swings only the strongest companies survived—and even fewer of them managed to thrive. The ones that did were able to build technology and business models that fundamentally altered the dynamics of a specific market. These companies were able to build great products and marry them with great distribution to bring their products to users. I’m always looking for companies and founders that want to have a similarly foundational impact.
Many of the founders who can drive that kind of change know intuitively, or through observation, where a market’s going. It was clear that Martin Mao and Rob Skillington were those founders from the day we met. Over dinner and drinks over the course of several months, the three of us discussed and debated what would eventually become Chronosphere, the cloud-native observability platform. One of the meetings with Martin was the day of the Uber IPO, where he and Rob were working at the time, and we discussed the Chronosphere business plan. I remember thinking that today was this major milestone in his life and he was already focused on “what’s next.” The most inspiring founders have that focus, that obsession, that belief that the world needs what they are building.
Realizing greatness
I set very high expectations for myself when it comes to the way I work with founders. My goal is to help founders realize their full potential. That means pushing them when necessary and supporting them when things get tough. But no matter what, I want to do it with honesty and respect. Companies are started because of “product founder fit,” companies succeed because of “product-market fit” and “product-go-to-market fit.”
I also think that finding the right “founder-investor fit” can help smooth the journey. When I meet a world-class founder with the right combination of passion and grit, I’ll pursue the opportunity as aggressively as I can. I recognize that I’m seeking to work with exceptionally talented individuals, and I want to earn the right to work with them.
Portfolio Companies
Consumer lending technology platform.
Domain
Fintech & Crypto, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series D
CURRENT STATUS
Public
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Cloud data cost management.
Domain
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Jason Risch
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Menlo Park, CA
Cloud-based secure network enterprise.
Domain
Cybersecurity, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Tel-Aviv | IL
Observability Built for Control.
Domain
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
New York, NY | USA
The cloud computer engine.
Domain
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Reinventing customer service for the 21st century.
Domain
SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Joseph Ansanelli, Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Providing a broad technology platform for operational efficiency.
Domain
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
The data framework for LLMs.
Domain
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Jason Risch
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA
Artificial intelligence automating and structuring every physician-patient interaction.
Domain
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Mateo, CA | USA
The Web 3.0 hub for automated DeFi and payment.
Domain
Fintech & Crypto
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Seth Rosenberg
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA
The universal data lakehouse.
Domain
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Menlo Park, CA | USA
Mobile tools designed for the blue-collar workforce.
Domain
SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Search and analytics for the AI era.
Domain
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
San Mateo, CA | USA
Analyze Machine Learning. Improve Model Quality. Build Trust.
Domain
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Redwood City, CA | USA
Cloud native data streaming infrastructure
Domain
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Corinne Riley
LEADERSHIP
HQ
Remote
Consumer lending technology platform.
Blend stands for better lending. We’re transforming the $40+ trillion consumer lending industry by creating a fast and simple approach to getting mortgages, consumer loans, and deposit accounts. Our Digital Lending Platform helps financial institutions increase productivity, deepen customer relationships, and deliver exceptional customer experiences. With Blend’s technology, lenders can make the journey from application to close fast and easy for consumers anytime, anywhere.
DOMAIN
Fintech & Crypto, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series D
CURRENT STATUS
Public
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Nima Ghamsari, CEO
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Cloud data cost management.
https://www.getbluesky.io/Founded by Google and Uber data and machine learning tech leads, Bluesky provides data-driven enterprises with intelligent workload optimization and cost governance tools that help them innovate while keeping costs under control. Bluesky’s first product provides unprecedented visibility into Snowflake workload usage and costs as well as actionable insights and workload specific recommendations for maximum optimization. Bluesky is used by well-known brands like Coinbase.
DOMAIN
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Jason Risch
LEADERSHIP
Mingsheng Hong, Co-founder and CEO
HQ
Menlo Park, CA
Cloud-based secure network enterprise.
https://www.catonetworks.com/Cato is the world’s first SASE platform, converging SD-WAN and network security into a global cloud service. Cato optimizes and secures application access for all users and locations. Cato replaces legacy security products and network services with an agile and secure global network that is ready for whatever’s next.
DOMAIN
Cybersecurity, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Shlomo Kramer, CEO & Co-Founder
Gur Shatz, CTO & Co-Founder
HQ
Tel-Aviv | IL
Cloud native observability.
https://chronosphere.io/Chronosphere is the observability platform built for control in the modern, containerized world. Recognized as a leader by major analyst firms, Chronosphere empowers customers to focus on the data and insights that matter to reduce data complexity, optimize costs, and remediate issues faster.
DOMAIN
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Martin Mao, CEO and Co-founder
Rob Skillington, CTO and Co-founder
HQ
New York, NY | USA
The cloud computer engine.
DOMAIN
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series B
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Scott Johnston, CEO
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Reinventing customer service for the 21st century.
Gladly is a radically personal customer service platform. Unlike legacy customer service platforms that are case centric, only Gladly is designed with people at the center and uniquely enables a single lifelong customer conversation from voice to modern messaging. Gladly powers some of the most innovative consumer companies like JetBlue, Porsche, Tory Burch, JOANN, and TUMI to deliver exceptional customer experiences and makes customer service a competitive advantage
DOMAIN
SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Joseph Ansanelli, Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Joseph Ansanelli, CEO & Co-Founder
Michael Wolfe, VP Products & Co-Founder
Dirk Kessler, Principal Engineer & Co-Founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Providing a broad technology platform for operational efficiency.
Instabase provides customizable solutions, and the building blocks to make them, for companies seeking to automate document-driven business processes.
DOMAIN
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Anant Bhardwaj, CEO & Founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
The data framework for LLMs.
LlamaIndex offers a practical toolkit that empowers any developer to unlock the full capabilities and use cases of LLMs on top of their own data. It can be used with any LLM and offers an easy to use and optimized experience. The toolkit can handle a diverse range of data sources, from structured to semi-structured to unstructured text or even image data, and includes data ingestion, data indexing, and a query engine layer on top.
DOMAIN
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Jason Risch
LEADERSHIP
Jerry Liu, CEO & Co-Founder
Simon Suo, CTO & Co-Founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA
Artificial intelligence automating and structuring every physician-patient interaction.
https://notablehealth.com/As health care shifted from paper to digital, administrative overhead grew to 8x that of any other industry – plagued by clicks, manual tasks, error prone workflows, and systems that don’t interoperate. Notable helps forward thinking health organizations automate from the front desk to the back office, using digital assistants and intelligent automation.
DOMAIN
AI, SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Pranay Kapadia, Co-Founder and CEO
Adam Ting, Co-Founder and CPO
Justin White, Co-Founder and CTO
HQ
San Mateo, CA | USA
The Web 3.0 hub for automated DeFi and payment.
OAK Network’s innovation, the event-driven transaction, allows users to create bespoke on-chain automation not possible today. Incumbent “automation” solutions are not consumer-friendly, requiring coding knowledge, AWS servers, and private key delegation. OAK’s more powerful transaction shifts the paradigm of automation from centralized servers to the blockchain. With OAK, users are empowered to schedule future and recurring payments, engage in trustless auto-trading, and place decentralized limit and stop-loss orders on AMM DEXs all without smart contract middlemen or compromising the security of a user’s wallet.
DOMAIN
Fintech & Crypto
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Seth Rosenberg
LEADERSHIP
Chris Li, CEO
HQ
San Francisco, CA
The universal data lakehouse.
Onehouse delivers a new bedrock for your data, through a cloud-native managed lakehouse service built on Apache Hudi, which was created by the founding team while they were at Uber. Onehouse makes it possible to blend the ease of use of a warehouse with the scale of a data lake, by offering a seamless experience for engineers to get their data lakes up and running.
DOMAIN
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Vinoth Chandar, CEO & Founder
HQ
Menlo Park, CA | USA
Mobile tools designed for the blue-collar workforce.
Rhumbix is transforming the way construction teams capture, share, and analyze project performance in the field. The Rhumbix Field Data Platform enables teams to simplify and streamline critical field workflows like timekeeping and time & materials tracking, eliminating static, paper-based reporting. Through these data-rich field insights, construction teams have easy access to centralized project reporting, connected workflows, and software integrations built for the way they work. Save time and increase productivity on the jobsite with the Rhumbix Field Data Platform.
DOMAIN
SaaS
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Active
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Zach Scheel, CEO & Co-Founder
Drew DeWalt, COO & Co-Founder
HQ
San Francisco, CA | USA
Search and analytics for the AI era.
https://rockset.com/Rockset is a real-time database in the cloud. It builds real-time converged indexes on transactional data from other databases and event data from streams, and supports schemaless ingest, built-in transformations and declarative SQL over REST. It is used for building data applications that make intelligent decisions on real-time data.
DOMAIN
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Venkat Venkataramani, CEO & Co-Founder
Dhruba Borthakur, CTO & Co-Founder
HQ
San Mateo, CA | USA
Analyze Machine Learning. Improve Model Quality. Build Trust.
Truera provides the first Model Intelligence platform, to help enterprises analyze machine learning, improve model quality and build trust. Powered by enterprise-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) Explainability technology based on six years of research at Carnegie Mellon University, Truera’s platform helps eliminate the black box surrounding widely used AI and ML technologies. This visibility leads to higher quality, explainable models that achieve measurable business results, address unfair bias, and ensure governance and compliance.
DOMAIN
AI, Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Seed
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen
LEADERSHIP
Anupam Datta, Co-Founder, President, & Chief Scientist
Shayak Sen, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
Will Uppington, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
HQ
Redwood City, CA | USA
Cloud native data streaming infrastructure
https://www.warpstream.com/WarpStream provides a drop-in replacement for Apache Kafka that runs directly on top of object storage, with no local disks.
DOMAIN
Infrastructure
FIRST PARTNERED
Series A
CURRENT STATUS
Acquired
INVESTORS
Jerry Chen, Corinne Riley
LEADERSHIP
Richard Artoul, CEO and Co-Founder
Ryan Worl, CTO and Co-Founder
HQ
Remote
