Stereo Capital

Co-founders Dmitry Dakhnovsky and Jim Smith make investment decisions together. Dakhnovsky contributes operator experience from founding and exiting technology companies such as TEKAMA and chessclub.com. Smith brings institutional venture capital discipline from his eleven-year tenure as a General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, where he led investments in OpenDNS and Pluribus Networks. The firm’s website describes a partnership model in which both principals conduct diligence directly and sit on portfolio company boards.

All publicly described Stereo Capital activity points to direct growth-equity investments in operating companies. The firm’s portfolio disclosures — Arctic Wolf Networks, Iterable, Zumper, HUMAN Security, Weave, and Wrike — are direct positions. No alternative structure such as fund-of-funds commitments, GP stakes, or secondary purchases has been documented. Stereo Capital’s own description of doing "the investment work ourselves" supports a pure direct-investment model.

Stereo Capital has not published a formal exclusion list, but its emphasis on data-generating businesses and winner-take-all dynamics effectively steers it away from sectors with slow customer-feedback cycles. Life sciences, hard industrial tech, and traditional infrastructure fall outside its documented portfolio pattern. The co-founders’ combined track record — spanning enterprise SaaS, cybersecurity, edtech, and consumer platforms — provides the clearest signal of where the firm’s underwriting confidence lies.