Madrona Venture Group

Seattle-anchored Pacific Northwest venture firm. Early-to-growth stage; deep specialization in intelligent applications, B2B software, cloud infrastructure, ML/AI, and data. Madrona has the longest-running thesis franchise in the AI ITSM / intelligent-applications space via its annual IA40 list, now in its fifth year (2025).

Snapshot

• Founded: 1995 (Seattle)
• Co-founders: Tom Alberg, Paul Goodrich, Gerald (Jerry) Grinstein, William (Bill) Ruckelshaus
• HQ: Seattle, WA
• AUM: Not publicly disclosed (multi-fund firm; multiple growth and early-stage vehicles). ^[ambiguous]
• Stage focus: Pre-seed / seed → growth (multi-vehicle: Madrona Acceleration Fund + Madrona main fund + Madrona growth)
• Geographic mandate: Pacific Northwest emphasis; broader enterprise/intelligent-apps mandate beyond geography
• Thesis franchises: Intelligent Applications (IA40), modern data stack, cloud infra, ML/AI, dev tools, security
• Notable exits / portfolio scale: Smartsheet (IPO), Snowflake (early backer), Apptio, Rover, Isilon, Heptio (acq. VMware), Ozette
• IA40 list: Madrona’s flagship industry-spanning annual ranking of top private AI/intelligent-application companies; 5th edition Aug 2025; nominated/voted by 70+ VC partners across 54 firms; ranked into Early / Mid / Late / Enablers / Emerging Enablers tiers.

Team (per madrona.com/team)

Managing Directors

• Scott Jacobson
• Matt McIlwain — long-tenured MD; partnered Slack-era infrastructure thesis; provided Slack introduction relevant to Ravenna’s GTM ^[inferred from Madrona podcast]
• Karan Mehandru
• Tim Porter — joined 2006; B2B software / intelligent applications / cloud infra / DevOps / cybersecurity; deal lead for Ravenna
• Steve Singh — ex-Concur founder/CEO; ex-Docker CEO
• S. Somasegar — ex-Microsoft DevDiv corporate VP

Partners

• Chris Picardo
• Sabrina Albert (Wu) — promoted to Partner; AI infrastructure focus ^[inferred]
• Vivek Ramaswami — AI/intelligent apps focus

Investors

• Anna Chen
• Rolanda Fu
• Joe Horsman
• Rasik Parikh — joined 2024; B2B software / intelligent applications; co-deal partner for Ravenna

Venture Partners

Loren Alhadeff, Anna Baird, Hope Cochran, Patrick Ennis, Oren Etzioni (ex-AI2 founding CEO), Mike Fridgen, Len Jordan, Ted Kummert (ex-Microsoft), Daniel Li, Mark Nelson, Bill Richter, Sid Shenai, Sidd Srinivasa, John Torrey, Jon Turow (ex-AWS GenAI; AI infra)

Strategic Directors

Sunny Gupta, Charlotte Hubbert, Sujal Patel, James Phillips

Ravenna Relevance

• Led Ravenna’s $15M pre-seed + seed (announced Apr 22–23, 2025).
• Deal partners: Tim Porter (MD, primary lead) + Rasik Parikh (Investor, co-byline). Matt McIlwain also referenced in the Madrona podcast as having made a key Slack introduction. ^[inferred]
• Investment post: AI-Native Service Management for Mid-Market and Growth Companies: Why We Invested in Ravenna, Apr 23, 2025.
• Companion podcast: Customer Obsession & Agentic AI Power Ravenna’s Reinvention of Internal Ops, Founded & Funded ep. May 2025, hosted by Tim Porter.
• Coined thesis: “Who will be the ServiceNow for the born-in-AI generation?” (Madrona-authored, not Ravenna-authored).
• IA40 status of Ravenna: Not on the 2025 IA40 list despite being in Madrona’s portfolio — likely too early at the August 2025 nomination cycle; watch for 2026 inclusion.

Notable Madrona AI Portfolio (intelligent-applications relevant)

Company	Stage	Madrona partner	Notes
Ravenna	Seed	Porter, Parikh	AI-native ITSM; “next ServiceNow for mid-market”
Highspot	Late / unicorn	Porter	Sales enablement; longest-tenured Porter portfolio company
Outbound AI	Early	Porter	Healthcare RCM AI
Spice AI	Early	Porter, Parikh	Data/AI infra; LLM-tooling
Stacklok	Early	Porter	OSS supply-chain security
Uplevel	Early	Porter	Engineering analytics
Dropzone AI	Mid (IA40 2025)	Porter	Autonomous SOC analyst
Runway	Late	Porter	Generative video AI
WhyLabs	Early	Porter, Parikh	ML observability
Groundlight	Early	Parikh	Computer vision agents
Numbers Station	Early (past)	Porter	Data automation
Echodyne / Eclypsium / Esper / Lassen Peak / Anomaly / NewDays / Entire / Strike Graph / Troop / Impart Security	Mixed	Porter or Parikh	Defense, security, devops, fintech

Past notable: Heptio (acq. VMware), Lexion, Jama Software, Algorithmia, Voodle, PlayFab.

Pattern: Madrona’s intelligent-applications franchise is built on identifying the “AI-native version of $Xforindustry$Y” wedge early. Ravenna fits this pattern as the AI-native version of ServiceNow for mid-market.

Notes (category facts)

• Madrona’s “next ServiceNow” framing now anchors two cap-table sides (Sequoia/Serval; Madrona/Ravenna) of the same thesis — a category-level investor consensus that the AI-native ITSM wedge will produce platform-scale outcomes.
• PNW network. Madrona’s portfolio mafia (Highspot, Smartsheet, Apptio, Rover, Heptio, Snowflake) creates buyer-side and operator-angel distribution, especially for Seattle-anchored deals.
• IA40 signal. Inclusion in IA40 = buyer-side credibility + investor amplification. Ravenna’s 2026 inclusion would be a leading indicator of investor-backed traction.
• Tim Porter’s Highspot involvement is the closest live analog to a multi-decade Madrona-led platform outcome; Ravenna being added to that portfolio implies similar long-hold commitment.

Open Questions

• Madrona AUM and fund-cycle disclosure. Not publicly stated.
• Sabrina Wu’s full investment focus. Listed as Partner; specific portfolio not surfaced this pass. ^[ambiguous]
• Madrona-Ravenna board seat. Not confirmed; Tim Porter is the strongly-inferred director.
• IA40 2026 inclusion criteria. Whether Ravenna’s traction will satisfy late-2026 IA40 voting.

Related

• ravenna
• tim-porter
• rasik-parikh
• matt-mcilwain
• khosla-ventures — co-investor in Ravenna
• founders-co-op — co-investor in Ravenna
• agent-first-itsm
• cap-table-patterns-across-startup-competitors

Fundraise intel (2026-05-25)

Status in CRM: LOST (closed 2026-04-28). Dead-tier — light pass.

Firm profile (raise lens)

Seattle-anchored early-to-growth firm, founded 1995; longest-running “intelligent applications” thesis franchise (IA40 list). Multi-vehicle (acceleration/seed → growth). Leads pre-seed and seed: e.g. Ridge AI $2.6Mpre-seedlead(Apr2026),\ast \ast Ravenna\ast \ast$15M seed co-lead (Apr 2025); participates at A (Clarify $15M autonomous-CRM A, 2025). Comfortable check range covers init.inc’s stage — but see conflict below.

Why this relationship is dead/lost

Pure connector collapse — no investor-side rejection at all. Per CRM: “No remaining path to firm. Isaiah was the only connector here, and he is now joining the team as a co-founder so can no longer act as an intro source.” Madrona’s CRM row lists investor “many” — i.e. no specific partner was ever engaged; the door simply closed when Isaiah moved in-house. This is the cleanest “re-openable if a new warm path appears” of the dead tier (no thesis no, no ghost), but the competitor conflict below makes re-opening low-value.

POC (CRM contact)

• No named Madrona partner (“many” in CRM; Isaiah was the connector, now a co-founder). The obvious deal partner (Tim Porter, MD) already co-led competitor Ravenna and authored the “ServiceNow for the born-in-AI generation” thesis, creating a firm-level conflict. Other intelligent-apps/agentic partners (Vivek Ramaswami, Sabrina Albert/Wu) are non-Ravenna, but the firm-level Ravenna exposure remains.

Fundraise Relationship (light)

• Status: Dead/lost. Two independent reasons: the connector path is permanently gone (Isaiah is now a co-founder), and Madrona is on a direct ITSM competitor’s cap table.
• Conversation log (newest first):
  • 2026-04-28 — LOST / closed. Isaiah (sole connector) joining init.inc as co-founder; no remaining intro path.
• Mutual connections / warm path: Isaiah only — now internal, so unusable as an intro source. No alternate path identified.
• Competitor-conflict flag: ⚠️ YES — firm-level. Madrona co-led competitor Ravenna’s $15M seed (Tim Porter + Rasik Parikh, Apr 2025) and coined Ravenna’s category thesis. Direct AI-native ITSM conflict. This is the more durable reason this stays dead, independent of the connector loss.

Best data channels for this firm

madrona.com (their “Why we invested” posts name deal partners + co-investors precisely — best source) → GeekWire (Seattle-deal coverage, e.g. Clarify) → IA40 list (madrona.com/ia40, leading-indicator watch-list). Aggregators understate Madrona’s lead role.

Cross-check vs existing wiki

Fully consistent with the existing competitor-investor framing above — the page already documents Madrona’s Ravenna lead and “next ServiceNow” thesis. No contradiction; the fundraise read reinforces the existing conflict flag. New info: the relationship was a live (if connector-only) fundraise path that died 2026-04-28 for connector reasons, layered on top of the pre-existing cap-table conflict.

Pass 2 deal pattern (2026-05-27)

Seed lead-rate / check / stage. Madrona is a high-frequency seed/pre-seed leader: in-window leads/co-leads include Ridge AI $2.6Mpre-seed(Apr2026,MarkNelson+TimPorter)\ast \ast ,\ast \ast Scala$8.5M seed co-lead with FUSE (Feb 2026, contact-center operational intelligence), Golden Analytics $7Mseedco-leadwithNEA(Apr2026,MarkNelson+TimPorteragain)\ast \ast ,plustheprior\ast \ast Ravenna$15M seed co-lead with Khosla (Apr 2025). Classic seed checks $2.6M–$15M; pre-seed pattern is “Day 1” UW-spinout (Ridge), and Madrona is now 25 UW-spinouts deep. Mark Nelson + Tim Porter pairing is the dominant in-window deal team for data/analytics agents. 1 P1 row reclassified: Charta Health was actually a Madrona-PARTICIPATED Series A ($22M,Bain-led,Jul2025),notaseed—theChartaseedwas$8.1M in Mar 2025, also Bain-led, no Madrona.

Competitor exposure (re-confirmed). ⚠️ Ravenna seed exposure re-verified ✅ via Ravenna’s own blog: “$15 million across our seed and pre-seed rounds, led by top-tier investors Madrona and Khosla Ventures including participation from Founders Co-op.” Tim Porter + Rasik Parikh remain the deal partners. ⚠️ NEW soft-adjacency flag — Scala (Feb 2026): “operational intelligence platform for modern contact centers” that observes how CX behaves across systems/channels/human agents/AI. The “observe → act” pattern in a different domain (CX, not ITSM) is neighboring init.inc territory. Not a direct competitor, but it adds a second AI-ops-adjacent Madrona bet alongside Ravenna. Pass 2 found NO new direct ITSM competitor exposure beyond Ravenna.

Best data channel for this firm. madrona.com “Why we invested in X” posts remain the gold standard — they consistently name the deal partner and co-investors (Ridge: Mark + Tim; Golden: Mark + Tim; Charta: Caleb Bushner byline + clear Bain-led framing). GeekWire for Seattle-deal corroboration. TheSaasNews and aggregators sometimes get the Madrona-co-lead pairing first (Scala). IA40 list remains the leading-indicator watch-list. Madrona’s posts are deliberately precise about their own role (led vs participated vs Day-1) — much more reliable than aggregator role-attribution.