Menlo Ventures

Menlo divides early-stage investing into three bands: Inception for pre-seed and seed validation, Venture for Series A and B company-building, and Inflection for initial growth-stage scaling. Teams are dedicated to each band, with the Inception Fund operating as a distinct pool inside the broader firm. This structure lets the same partnership support a company from incorporation through a Series C without handing off the relationship.

Menlo publishes original research on generative AI adoption inside enterprises, healthcare, and consumer markets, giving the firm a proprietary data layer most VCs lack. The Anthology Fund, a $100M vehicle formed with Anthropic, provides additional proprietary pipeline into AI-native startups. The firm's "All In on AI" posture means generalist partners actively cover infrastructure, application, and vertical-AI companies alongside dedicated AI investors.

The firm concentrates its capital in North America but has backed companies with geographic exposure in Europe—Lovable and Photomath are two portfolio examples. The core office is in San Francisco, and the partnership primarily underwrites opportunities from US-based founders, though it does not formally restrict by jurisdiction.

The Anthology Fund is a $100M initiative built in partnership with Anthropic to seed the next generation of AI-native startups. It provides both capital and early access to Anthropic's models and technical talent. This vehicle sits inside Menlo's early-stage platform and gives its inception and venture teams a direct line into the frontier-model ecosystem.

The firm operates a dedicated Fuel Team that provides portfolio companies with go-to-market execution, talent advisory, and corporate development support. Partnerships with over 170 public-company alumni and a 44-year network give founders access to operators who have navigated IPOs and acquisitions. Menlo explicitly markets itself not as a passive capital source but as a "company-building" firm that embeds operational help into the board relationship.

Menlo explicitly invests in AI, bio plus healthcare, consumer, cybersecurity, fintech, infrastructure, robotics and hardware, SaaS, and supply chain automation. The firm does not list climate, defense, or space technology as formal focus areas, suggesting those sectors sit outside its current mandate, though no public exclusion policy exists.

Menlo reports that its portfolio has produced over 170 public companies. Notable IPOs include Uber (2019), Roku (2017), Chime (2025), Poshmark (2021), and Recursion (2021). The firm also incubated Gilead Sciences in 1987, which went public in 1992 and remains one of the largest biotech companies globally.